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Contrasting effects of cover crops on ‘hot spot’ arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities in organic tomato

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Abstract

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal (AMF) communities are fundamental in organic cropping systems where they provide essential agro-ecosystem services, improving soil fertility and sustaining crop production. They are affected by agronomic practices, but still, scanty information is available about the role of specific crops, crop rotations and the use of winter cover crops on the AMF community compositions at the field sites. A field experiment was conducted to elucidate the role of diversified cover crops and AMF inoculation on AMF diversity in organic tomato. Tomato, pre-inoculated at nursery with two AMF isolates, was grown following four cover crop treatments: Indian mustard, hairy vetch, a mixture of seven species and a fallow. Tomato root colonization at flowering was more affected by AMF pre-transplant inoculation than by the cover crop treatments. An enormous species richness was found by morphological spore identification: 58 AMF species belonging to 14 genera, with 46 and 53 species retrieved at the end of cover crop cycle and at tomato harvest, respectively. At both sampling times, AMF spore abundance was highest in hairy vetch, but after tomato harvest, AMF species richness and diversity were lower in hairy vetch than in the cover crop mixture and in the mustard treatments. A higher AMF diversity was found at tomato harvest, compared with the end of the cover crop cycle, independent of the cover crop and pre-transplant AMF inoculation. Our findings suggest that seasonal and environmental factors play a major role on AMF abundance and diversity than short-term agronomic practices, including AMF inoculation. The huge AMF diversity is explained by the field history and the Mediterranean environment, where species characteristic of temperate and sub-tropical climates co-occur.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the EU-RTD FP7 Project SOLIBAM (Strategies for Organic and Low-input Integrated Breeding and Management), Grant Agreement FP7-KBBE 245058, 2010–2014, by the University of Pisa and National Research Council. The Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna of Pisa, Italy, funded the PhD grant of E.M. Njeru. The authors wish to thank Camilla Moonen, Ambrogio Costanzo, Giacomo Nardi and the CIRAA personnel for their precious help in carrying out the field experiment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Istituto di Scienze della Vita, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, P.za Martiri della Libertà 33, 56127, Pisa, Italy

    Ezekiel Mugendi Njeru, Gionata Bocci & Paolo Bàrberi

  2. Department of Microbiology, Kenyatta University, P.O. Box 43844-00100, Nairobi, Kenya

    Ezekiel Mugendi Njeru

  3. Istituto di Biologia e Biotecnologia Agraria, CNR, UO Pisa, Via del Borghetto 80, 56124, Pisa, Italy

    Luciano Avio & Cristiana Sbrana

  4. Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie, Alimentari e Agro-ambientali, Università di Pisa, Via del Borghetto 80, 56124, Pisa, Italy

    Alessandra Turrini & Manuela Giovannetti

  5. Agroscope, Federal Research Institute for Sustainability Sciences, Plant-Soil Interactions, Reckenholzstrasse 191, CH-8046, Zürich, Switzerland

    Fritz Oehl

  6. Departamento de Micologia, CCB, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Av. da Engenharia s/n, Cidade Universitária, 50740-600, Recife, PE, Brazil

    Fritz Oehl

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  1. Ezekiel Mugendi Njeru
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Njeru, E.M., Avio, L., Bocci, G. et al. Contrasting effects of cover crops on ‘hot spot’ arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities in organic tomato. Biol Fertil Soils 51, 151–166 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-014-0958-z

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