Arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis: plant growth improvement and induction of resistance under stressful conditions

Abstract

The impact of stress on crop productivity and the ecosystem have been magnified by climate changes and mispractices in the agriculture field. Soil microbiome is a diverse system consisting of various microorganisms. Environmental control techniques like the use of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are necessary to enhance crop productivity. AMF is known as stress regulating organisms that help plants within the nutrient uptake, biotic and abiotic stress management, plant protection, and consequently enhancement on crop yields. Also, host plants can tolerate many difficult situations such as water problems, salt stress, heavy metals, and temperature changes through AMF inoculation. Arbuscular mycorrhizae (AM) enhance plant growth under stress by mediating a series of complex contact events between the two symbiotic partners resulting in a good photosynthetic and gas exchange amelioration. Plants have several tolerance mechanisms to deal with the constraints of environmental changes. The antioxidant ability is the principal tolerance mechanism; it is assisted by osmolytes accumulation and exacting absorption of ions. In this review, we will discuss the effect of AMF colonization on the host plants at different stages of growth, with comprehensively updated knowledge, their roles, and applications for plant growth enhancement and mycorrhizae role on plant resistance induction and stress management.

Keywords:

• arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi
• biotic and abiotic stress
• colonization
• plant growth
• resistance
• stress management

Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to Raiganj University, India; University of Brothers Mentouri Constantine 1, Algeria; University of L’Aquila, Coppito, Italy; University of Tabriz, Iran; Kyungpook National University, Republic of Korea; Ravenshaw University, India; Banasthali University, India; ICAR – National Rice Research Institute, India for the encouragement and support. The author D. Mitra is grateful to Government of West Bengal, India for Swami Vivekananda Merit Cum Means Ph.D. Scholarship (WBP191584588825). The authors are grateful to editor and reviewer for their valuable suggestions to increase the scientific quality of the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Author contributions

DM and RD contributed equally as first authors. DM, RD, BM, MP, BK, RM, PC, AS was involved in the writing; PKDM, PP, MDG, MK, DPB was involved in manuscript refinement & important intellectual content discussion; and DM, RD initiated the idea of the study.