Abstract
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are microorganisms with very important functions in agricultural systems. Since arbuscular mycorrhiza is one of the most common types of mycorrhizae, the diversity of AMF is very varied. Their diversity can be influenced by various biotic and abiotic factors. Of these, drought is one of the most common abiotic stresses in agriculture. In this study, we evaluated the influence of drought and inoculation with three species of AMF (Rhizoglomus irregulare, Funneliformis mosseae and F. caledonium) on the fungal genetic diversity in the roots of tomato plants (Solanum lycopersicum L.) using partial 18S rRNA gene in molecular fingerprinting method. Two conserved primer pairs NS1–NS4 and NS31–AM1 in Nested PCR were used. The second primer pair is specific for AM fungi from Glomeromycota, but also amplifies DNA from Ascomycota and Basidiomycota to a very small extent. Drought caused a decrease in fungal alpha diversity in tomato roots of non-inoculated plants. On the other hand, an increase of this diversity due to drought in inoculated plants was observed. Based on principal component analysis, a statistically significant shift in the composition of fungal communities in non-inoculated and inoculated plants due to drought was not detected. At the same time, the most variable fungal communities were in control well-watered and non-inoculated plants, but this variation was not significant.
Highlights
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) which form a symbiosis with approximately 80 % of terrestrial plant species have an important role in processes such as increasing mobilization and nutrient transfer, plant tolerance to root pathogens, production of plant growth hormones, plant biodiversity, adaptation of the plant to adverse environmental conditions, the absorption capacity of plant roots, and many others (Garg and Chandel 2010)
Our work aimed to investigate the effect of drought as well as the effect of inoculation of tomato plants with three AMF species on the fungal diversity in the roots of such plants
Outputs from terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis in the form of electrophoregrams were analysed by the Peak Scanner 2 (Applied Biosystems, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Wilmington, USA), and operational taxonomic units (OTUs) in range 60 – 550 bp were used for the evaluation
Summary
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) which form a symbiosis with approximately 80 % of terrestrial plant species have an important role in processes such as increasing mobilization and nutrient transfer, plant tolerance to root pathogens, production of plant growth hormones, plant biodiversity, adaptation of the plant to adverse environmental conditions, the absorption capacity of plant roots, and many others (Garg and Chandel 2010). Other studies found a shift in their diversity (Deveautour et al 2018; 2020), or others even found an increase in AMF biomass (Karlowsky et al 2018; Mackie et al 2019; Kundel et al 2020). For this reason, our work aimed to investigate the effect of drought as well as the effect of inoculation of tomato plants with three AMF species on the fungal diversity in the roots of such plants. When comparing two sets of samples (inoculated and non-inoculated plants) it could be expected that the drought simulation would have a stronger effect on the genetic diversity of fungi in the roots of noninoculated than inoculated plants
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