Arbuscular mycorrhiza effects on plant performance under osmotic stress

Abstract

At present, drought and soil salinity are among the most severe environmental stresses that affect the growth of plants through marked reduction of water uptake which lowers water potential, leading to osmotic stress. In general, osmotic stress causes a series of morphological, physiological, biochemical, and molecular changes that affect plant performance. Several studies have found that diverse types of soil microorganisms improve plant growth, especially when plants are under stressful conditions. Most important are the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) which form arbuscular mycorrhizas (AM) with approximately 80% of plant species and are present in almost all terrestrial ecosystems. Beyond the well-known role of AM in improving plant nutrient uptake, the contributions of AM to plants coping with osmotic stress merit analysis. With this review, we describe the principal direct and indirect mechanisms by which AM modify plant responses to osmotic stress, highlighting the role of AM in photosynthetic activity, water use efficiency, osmoprotectant production, antioxidant activities, and gene expression. We also discuss the potential for using AMF to improve plant performance under osmotic stress conditions and the lines of research needed to optimize AM use in plant production.

How do arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi handle phosphate? New insight into fine‐tuning of phosphate metabolism

“…a,b). Water transport through AM fungal hyphae has been proposed by many studies, but not demonstrated directly (Santander et al ., ). It is hypothesized that transpiration creates osmotic gradients between the root and fungal cells and water moves along the gradients, which could be tested in the future.…”

Effect of fertilization and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal inoculation on antioxidant profiles and activities in Fragaria ananassa fruit

“…Moreover, increases in the quality of the vast majority of crops using arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi has also been reported, showing improved uptake of water and some nutrients such as K or N, and especially P . Its use must therefore be a main factor in the context of sustainable agriculture aimed at a reduction of inputs into plant production . Nevertheless, there is no information about the effect of AM fungal inoculation on the quality of strawberry fruits in relation to their antioxidant profiles, concentration, and activities.…”

“…17 Moreover, increases in the quality of the vast majority of crops using arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi has also been reported, showing improved uptake of water and some nutrients such as K or N, 18 and especially P. 19,20 Its use must therefore be a main factor in the context of sustainable agriculture aimed at a reduction of inputs into plant production. 20,21 Nevertheless, there is no information about the effect of AM fungal inoculation on the quality of strawberry fruits in relation to their antioxidant profiles, concentration, and activities. We therefore aimed to study this interaction here in the context of the introduction of a new productive strain to be established in andisols with low P availability and to provide some information about promoting the production of high-quality strawberry fruit supported by sustainable management.…”

Qualidade de mudas de espécies arbóreas procedentes do Bioma Pantanal e inoculadas com fungos micorrízicos

“…Outros possíveis mecanismos de sobrevivência e resistência das plantas a estresses, que podem estar relacionados à infecção micorrízica, são o aumento na produção de enzimas antioxidantes (Wu & Zou, 2009), alteração dos níveis hormonais e mudanças na condutância estomática, aumento do conteúdo de água dos tecidos vegetais, dos teores de clorofila e das taxas fotossintética (Zhu et al, 2012;Frosi et al, 2016) e transpiratória (Harris-Valle et al, 2009;Zhu et al, 2012;Santander et al, 2017). Em condições de campo, também se deve considerar, nestes mecanismos de interação solo-planta-fungo, a influência do micélio fúngico na mineralização da matéria orgânica do solo (Paterson et al, 2016), na aquisição de nutrientes pelo hospedeiro (Bender et al, 2015;Thirkell et al, 2017), bem como a importância física de seu exudato, a glomalina (Kohler et al, 2017), que pode favorecer a formação de agregados mais estáveis (Dai et al, 2015;Qin et al, 2017) e mais aptos a trocas de água e ar entre solo e raízes (Al-Kaisi et al, 2014).…”