Morphological and Molecular Characterizations of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi and Their Influence on Soil Physicochemical Properties and Plant Nutrition

Salma Noreen; Tabassum Yaseen; Javed Iqbal; Banzeer Ahsan Abbasi; Mohamed Farouk Elsadek; Sayed M Eldin; Shumaila Ijaz; Iftikhar Ali

doi:10.1021/acsomega.3c02489

Morphological and Molecular Characterizations of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi and Their Influence on Soil Physicochemical Properties and Plant Nutrition

ACS Omega. 2023 Sep 1;8(36):32468-32482. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.3c02489. eCollection 2023 Sep 12.

Authors

Salma Noreen¹, Tabassum Yaseen¹, Javed Iqbal¹, Banzeer Ahsan Abbasi², Mohamed Farouk Elsadek³, Sayed M Eldin⁴, Shumaila Ijaz⁵, Iftikhar Ali^{6

7}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Botany, Bacha Khan University, Charsadda 24420, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
² Department of Botany, Rawalpindi Women University, 6th Road, Satellite Town, Rawalpindi 46000, Pakistan.
³ Department of Community Health Sciences, College of Applied Medical Sciences, King Saud University, P.O. Box 10219, Riyadh 11433, Saudi Arabia.
⁴ Center of Research, Faculty of Engineering, Future University in Egypt, New Cairo 11835, Egypt.
⁵ Department of Botany, Division of Science and Technology, University of Education, Lahore 54000, Pakistan.
⁶ Center for Plant Sciences and Biodiversity, University of Swat, Charbagh 19120, Pakistan.
⁷ Department of Genetics and Development, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, New York 10032, United States.

Abstract

Pulses are considered a remarkable and stable source of nutrients, which are being presently extensively cultivated and consumed in different parts of the world. Pulses belong to the family Leguminosae and are a rich source of nutrients such as phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) for best growth via symbiotic relationship with bacteria and AMF (arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi). The aim of the current study was evaluating the influence of AMF diversity associated with various pulses (French bean, mung bean, kidney bean, peas, soybean, peanuts, and grams). Furthermore, AMF characterization was done using morphological features of spores and sequencing of the rDNA gene, which confirmed the existence of 10 different AMF taxa. Among the different genera, the genus Glomus was observed to be the most dominant with 30% species followed by Gigaspora (22%), Sclerocystis (12%), Acaulospora (8%), Rhizophagus and Septoglomus (7%), Diversispora (5%), and Claroideoglomus, Archaeospora, and Ambispora (3%). Furthermore, soil physicochemical analysis and percentage of AMF colonization results revealed the fact that the phosphorus content (inversely proportional to the AMF diversity) was a determining factor of AMF diversity. The highest amount of available phosphorus (62.825 mg kg^-1) in the district Swabi resulted in a low rate of AMF colonization (6.66 ± 11.54%) with a comparatively higher rate of AMF colonization (50.66 ± 1.15%) found in the soil of the district Chitral having a low phosphorus content (17.3 ± 7.6 mg kg^-1). Nutrient uptake by pulses including nitrogen (2.4 ± 1.3%), phosphorus (13.5 ± 7.6 mg kg ^-1), potassium (99.5 ± 25.8 mg kg ^-1), zinc (1.4 ± 0.5 mg kg ^-1), moisture (2.3 ± 1.3%), crude fats (5.6 ± 2.8%), ash (4 ± 1.2%), and proteins (13.6 ± 9.01%) determined the fact that AMF species diversity is positively correlated to the plant mineral nutrition. From the current study, it is concluded that AMF inoculation to the soil fields is beneficial to ensure the sustainability and productivity of pulse crops in diverse environmental conditions without polluting the soil.