Arbuscular mycorrhizal mycelial networks and glomalin-related soil protein increase soil aggregation in Calcaric Regosol under well-watered and drought stress conditions

By L. Ji, W. Tan, Xiuhua Chen. Soil & Tillage Research, 2019

130 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi have a direct influence on soil aggregation in most fertile ecosystems. This study investigated the effects of AM fungi on soil aggregate stability of Calcaric Regosol under well-watered and drought stress conditions. A two-compartment system was employed to exclude the effects of plant roots, and ultrasonic dispersion technique was applied to evaluate the aggregate bond energy. The results showed that good symbiotic relationships were formed between AM fungi and sandstorm-tolerant species Astragalus adsurgens Pall even under drought stress conditions. Inoculation with AM fungi significantly improved plant growth, especially the root development. Hyphal length, spore density, glomalin-related soil protein content were significantly increased by AM fungal inoculation under both well-watered and drought stress conditions. Likewise, the proportion and dispersive energy of soil water-stable macroaggregates were also markedly increased by the inoculation. The hyphae of AM fungi directly contributed to the dispersive energy of soil water-stable macroaggregates and significantly improved soil aggregate stability under both experimental conditions. This study demonstrates that AM fungi play a dominant role in the stability of soil water-stable aggregates by improving the aggregate bond energy, particularly for macroaggregates.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Plant Science, Soil Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/358971dfc2176426ecf9000981cf0177a0080733

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

1. Xiaojin Jiang
2. Xiai Zhu
3. A. Singh
4. Chunfeng Chen
5. Bin Yang
6. Junen Wu
7. Wenjie Liu
8. Nandita Singh

Citations in the corpus

• The role of glomalin in mitigation of multiple soil degradation problems (2020, background): “It improves soil physical properties (e.g., porosity and water storage) by acting as a binding agent during soil aggregation (Ji et al., 2019; Treseder & Turner, 2007).”