The Inhibitory Effect of Endophyte-Infected Tall Fescue on White Clover Can Be Alleviated by Glomus mosseae Instead of Rhizobia.

Jinming Liu,Hui Liu,Xiaowen Fan,Xiaoyu Ge,Yubao Gao,Anzhi Ren

doi:10.3390/microorganisms9010109

Abstract

In artificial ecosystems, mixed planting of gramineous and leguminous plants can have obvious advantages and is very common. Due to their improved growth performances and stress tolerance, endophyte-infected grasses are considered to be ideal plant species for grasslands. However, endophytic fungi can inhibit the growth of neighboring nonhost leguminous plants. In this study, we chose endophyte-infected and endophyte-free tall fescue (Lolium arundinaceum Darbyshire ex. Schreb.) and clover (Trifolium repens) as the experimental materials to explore whether arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and rhizobium can alleviate the inhibitory effect of endophyte infection on clover. The results showed that endophytic fungi significantly reduced clover biomass. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi inoculation significantly increased the biomass of clover in both endophyte-infected tall fescue/clover and endophyte-free tall fescue/clover systems but the beneficial contribution of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi was more obvious in the endophyte-infected tall fescue/clover system. Rhizobia inoculation could alleviate the detrimental effect of tall fescue on the growth of clover but did not alleviate the detrimental effect of endophyte infection on the growth of clover.

Highlights

Plant to plant interactions have important effects on the productivity and composition of plant communities and even ecosystems [1,2,3,4]
Endophyte infection reduced the nodule number of the neighboring clover (Figure 1A,D)
arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) Inoculation Can Alleviate the Inhibition of Endophytic Fungi on Clover

Summary

Introduction

Plant to plant interactions have important effects on the productivity and composition of plant communities and even ecosystems [1,2,3,4]. The mixed planting of grassland has advantages in improving forage yield and quality [5,6,7] and plays an obvious role in improving soil fertility and realizing systematic sustainable production [8]. In a grazing experiment in Canada, Chen et al [9] found that total amounts of N2 fixed in Medicago sativa and Poa pratensis mixed pastures were sufficient to replace N fertilizer and sustain plant protein for grazing compared with grass-only pastures. Li et al [10] reported that in intensive farming systems, leguminous and gramineous mixed cropping played an important role in alleviating the inhibitory effect of N fertilization on nodulation and N2 fixation and the productivity of intercropping could be improved. In addition to the fact that leguminous plants and rhizobium can form root nodules [11,12], terrestrial plants can develop other nutrient absorption strategies with microorganisms; for example, higher plants associate with mycorrhizal fungi [13,14,15,16,17] and grass and endophytic fungi form symbionts [18,19,20]

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Methods

Conclusion