Abstract
(1) Background: Soil degradation is an increasingly important problem in many parts of the world, particularly in arid and semiarid areas. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) isolated from arid soils are recognized to be better adapted to these edaphoclimatic conditions than exogenous ones. Nevertheless, little is known about the importance of AMF inoculum sources on Tamarix articulata development in natural saline soils. Therefore, the current study aims at investigating the efficiency of two AMF-mixed inoculums on T. articulata growth, with consideration of its rhizosphere microbiota. (2) Methods: indigenous inoculum made of strains originating from saline soils and a commercial one were used to inoculate T. articulata in four saline soils with different salinity levels under microcosm conditions with evaluation of rhizosphere microbial biomasses. (3) Results: Our findings showed that indigenous inoculum outperforms the commercial one by 80% for the mycorrhizal rate and 40% for plant biomasses, which are correlated with increasing shoot phosphorus content. Soil microbial biomasses increased significantly with indigenous mycorrhizal inoculum in the most saline soil with 46% for AMF, 25% for saprotrophic fungi and 15% for bacterial biomasses. (4) Conclusion: Present results open the way towards the preferential use of mycorrhizal inoculum, based on native AMF, to perform revegetation and to restore the saline soil microbiota.
Highlights
Mediterranean ecosystems are severely subjected to soil desertification [1,2], which negatively affects plants establishment, growth and biodiversity as well as multiplicity and richness of rhizospheric microbiota [3,4,5]
In order to evaluate the impact of Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) inoculum source on T. articulata colonization and diversity, the mycorrhizal rate was evaluated after 6 months of culture on non- saline soil Laghouat (LG), two slightly saline soils Hassi-Bahbah (HB), Djelfa (DU) and on the moderate saline soil Boughzoul (BG)
The present investigation highlights the positive effectiveness of indigenous mycorrhizal inoculum on T. articulata plant growth and soil microbial biomass in arid and semi-arid saline soils
Summary
Mediterranean ecosystems are severely subjected to soil desertification [1,2], which negatively affects plants establishment, growth and biodiversity as well as multiplicity and richness of rhizospheric microbiota [3,4,5]. In Algerian arid and semi-arid areas, soil desertification due to different abiotic stress, especially soil salinity, restricted natural process of plant succession [1,6,7]. To counteract different problems of soil degradation, the Algerian state put in place a revegetation program based on indigenous shrubs [2,9]. These programs were relatively unproductive due to conventional planting techniques based on cutting methods not adapted to local stressed environmental conditions [10]. Steppic arid and semi-arid Algerian areas are subject to several types of abiotic stresses, such as salinity, drought, calcareous, etc., which deteriorate their soils and makes them inappropriate for cultivation [2,9,10]
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