Abstract
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are often considered bioameliorators. AMF can promote plant growth under various stressful conditions; however, differences between male and female clones in mycorrhizal strategies that protect plants from the detrimental effects of salinity are not well studied. In this study, we aimed to examine the interactive effects of salinity and AMF on the growth, photosynthetic traits, nutrient uptake, and biochemical responses of Morus alba males and females. In a factorial setup, male and female M. alba clones were subjected to three salinity regimes (0, 50, and 200 mM NaCl) and planted in soil with or without Funneliformis mosseae inoculation. The results showed that NaCl alone conferred negative effects on the growth, salinity tolerance, photosynthetic performance, and shoot and root ionic ratios (K+/Na+, Ca2+/Na+, and Mg2+/Na+) in both sexes; in contrast, mycorrhizal inoculation mitigated the detrimental effects of salinity. Furthermore, the mycorrhizal effects were closely correlated with Mn2+, proline, and N concentrations. Females benefited more from AMF inoculation as shown by the enhancements in their biomass accumulation, and N, proline, K+, Mg2+, Fe2+, Zn2+, and Mn2+ concentrations than males with mycorrhizal inoculation under saline conditions. In comparison, male plants inoculated with AMF showed improvements in biomass allocated to the roots, P, and peroxidase concentrations under saline conditions. These sex-specific differences suggest that male and female mulberry clones adopted different mycorrhizal strategies when growing under saline conditions. Overall, our results provide insight into the sex-specific difference in the performance of AMF-associated mulberry clones, suggesting that female mulberry could be more suitable for vegetation remediation than the male one, due to its higher salinity tolerance.
Highlights
Soil salinity, a major concern in agriculture and forestry (Wu et al, 2016; van Zelm et al, 2020), is spreading and continuously worsening with the ongoing global warming (Rengasamy, 2006; Munns and Tester, 2008; Ondrasek and Rengel, 2021)
At 200 mM NaCl, fungal colonization significantly increased the root/shoot ratio of male plants by 70.3% but decreased that of female plants by 32.6% compared with that of NM plants (Figure 2B). These findings indicate that mycorrhizal inoculation could effectively alleviate the detrimental effects of salinity on the biomass accumulation of female plants but that the mycorrhizal efficiency on root/shoot ratio varied with saline conditions
Mycorrhizal inoculation mitigated the detrimental effects of salinity, which supports our first hypothesis that Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) inoculation can alleviate the detrimental effects of salt stress
Summary
A major concern in agriculture and forestry (Wu et al, 2016; van Zelm et al, 2020), is spreading and continuously worsening with the ongoing global warming (Rengasamy, 2006; Munns and Tester, 2008; Ondrasek and Rengel, 2021). It is worth noting that male and female individuals of plant species have been documented to respond differently to salinity stress (Juvany and Munné-Bosch, 2015; Melnikova et al, 2017; Hao et al, 2020). These sex-specific differences in physiological traits are not well understood and change widely within species (Nicotra et al, 2003; Chen et al, 2010; Li et al, 2013; McKown et al, 2017). Owing to this discrepancy, exploring the mechanism underlying the sexspecific differences exhibited under saline conditions is necessary
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