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Soil moisture—a regulator of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal community assembly and symbiotic phosphorus uptake

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Abstract

Multiple species of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can colonize roots of an individual plant species but factors which determine the selection of a particular AMF species in a plant root are largely unknown. The present work analysed the effects of drought, flooding and optimal soil moisture (15–20 %) on AMF community composition and structure in Sorghum vulgare roots, using PCR-RFLP. Rhizophagus irregularis (isolate BEG 21), and rhizosphere soil (mixed inoculum) of Heteropogon contortus, a perennial C4 grass, collected from the semi-arid Delhi ridge, were used as AMF inocula. Soil moisture functioned as an abiotic filter and affected AMF community assembly inside plant roots by regulating AMF colonization and phylotype diversity. Roots of plants in flooded soils had lowest AMF diversity whilst root AMF diversity was highest under the soil moisture regime of 15–20 %. Although plant biomass was not affected, root P uptake was significantly influenced by soil moisture. Plants colonized with R. irregularis or mixed AMF inoculum showed higher root P uptake than non-mycorrhizal plants in drought and control treatments. No differences in root P levels were found in the flooded treatment between plants colonized with R. irregularis and non-mycorrhizal plants, whilst under the same treatment, root P uptake was lower in plants colonized with mixed AMF inoculum than in non-mycorrhizal plants.

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Acknowledgments

DK received a DU-DST PURSE grant from the University of Delhi, and SD received a Senior Research Fellowship from CSIR India. The authors thank Prof. P Pardha Saradhi for the greenhouse facilities, Prof. MGA van der Heijden for providing R. irregularis inoculum and two anonymous referees for their critical comments and suggestions that improved the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Soil Biology and Microbial Ecology, Department of Environmental Studies, University of Delhi, 110007, Delhi, India

    Sharma Deepika & David Kothamasi

  2. Biosphere Impact Studies Unit, Belgian Nuclear Research Center (SCK•CEN), Boeretang 200, 2400, Mol, Belgium

    David Kothamasi

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  1. Sharma Deepika
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Correspondence to David Kothamasi.

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Supplementary Fig. 1

Maximum likelihood tree showing the phylogenetic relationship among the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal (AMF) sequences obtained in this study and their closest related sequences from the NCBI database (JPEG 1.60 mb)

Supplementary Fig. 2

Rarefaction curve of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal (AMF) phylotype richness in Sorghum vulgare M35 roots analysed in this study. The clones are from three clone libraries each of a control, drought and flooded soil moisture regime (JPEG 22 kb)

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Deepika, S., Kothamasi, D. Soil moisture—a regulator of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal community assembly and symbiotic phosphorus uptake. Mycorrhiza 25, 67–75 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00572-014-0596-1

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