Abstract
Modern agriculture is facing challenge to ensure global food demand. However, climate change is causing increase in temperature which leads to severe droughts in some areas. Numerous biotechnological techniques are being used to overcome this drought stress, among them the use of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) is thought to be a proficient approach for mitigation of drought stress. AMF provide drought tolerance by biochemical and physiological mechanisms. Some of well known mechanisms include modification of hormonal balance including strigolactones, abscisic acid, gibberellic acid, salicylic acid, and jasmonic acid. AMF improve plant water status by increasing hydraulic conductivity, stomatal conductance, water use efficiency, relative water content, and biomass content. Symbiosis of AMF changes expression of plasma membrane and tonoplast aquaporins (water transporting channels) (PIPs and TIPs), which improves water status of the plant. AM increases the rate of photosynthesis of plant by mending photosystem-II (PSII) and boosts quantum efficiency of PSII under drought stress conditions. AM alters the transcript levels of chloroplast genes encoding antenna proteins involved in transfer of excitation energy. This chapter mainly focuses on the mechanisms adopted by AM to provide drought tolerance to plants.
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