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Edith Hammer. Photo.

Edith Hammer

Senior lecturer

Edith Hammer. Photo.

Elemental composition of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi at high salinity.

Author

  • Edith Hammer
  • Hafedh Nasr
  • Jan Pallon
  • Pål Axel Olsson
  • Håkan Wallander

Summary, in English

We investigated the elemental composition of spores and hyphae of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) collected from two saline sites at the desert border in Tunisia, and of Glomus intraradices grown in vitro with or without addition of NaCl to the medium, by proton-induced X-ray emission. We compared the elemental composition of the field AMF to those of the soil and the associated plants. The spores and hyphae from the saline soils showed strongly elevated levels of Ca, Cl, Mg, Fe, Si, and K compared to their growth environment. In contrast, the spores of both the field-derived AMF and the in vitro grown G. intraradices contained lower or not elevated Na levels compared to their growth environment. This resulted in higher K:Na and Ca:Na ratios in spores than in soil, but lower than in the associated plants for the field AMF. The K:Na and Ca:Na ratios of G. intraradices grown in monoxenic cultures were also in the same range as those of the field AMF and did not change even when those ratios in the growth medium were lowered several orders of magnitude by adding NaCl. These results indicate that AMF can selectively take up elements such as K and Ca, which act as osmotic equivalents while they avoid uptake of toxic Na. This could make them important in the alleviation of salinity stress in their plant hosts.

Department/s

  • Biodiversity
  • MEMEG
  • Nuclear physics
  • Microbial Ecology
  • BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate
  • Biodiversity and Conservation Science
  • Plant Biology

Publishing year

2011

Language

English

Pages

117-129

Publication/Series

Mycorrhiza

Volume

21

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Springer

Topic

  • Subatomic Physics
  • Biological Sciences
  • Ecology

Status

Published

Research group

  • Microbial Ecology
  • Biodiversity and Conservation Science
  • Plant Biology

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1432-1890