Author(s)

Masao Higo^*, Katsunori Isobe, Yukiya Matsuda, Mio Ichida, Yoichi Torigoe

College of Bioresource Sciences, Nihon University, Fujisawa, Japan.

Introduction of cover crops may improve the diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in roots and soil under crop rotational systems; therefore, it is necessary to determine the potential for AMF communities to improve sustainable food production. We investigated the impact of cover crops, including wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), pea (Pisum sativum L.), and hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth.), on the AMF communities in their roots in autumn and spring sowing seasons with PCR-DGGE analysis. Although all four cover crops impacted the AMF community structure in roots, the diversity of AMF communities was unchanged among crop type or sowing season. Redundancy analysis (RDA) demonstrated that AMF communities within crop type were significantly different. However, the AMF community structures were not influenced by growing season, suggesting that growth stage in crops may be more responsive to shaping AMF community structure in crop roots than host crop identity.

Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi, Community Structure, Crop Identity, Host Selectivity, Sowing Season

Higo, M. , Isobe, K. , Matsuda, Y. , Ichida, M. and Torigoe, Y. (2015) Influence of Sowing Season and Host Crop Identity on the Community Structure of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Colonizing Roots of Two Different Gramineous and Leguminous Crop Species. Advances in Microbiology, 5, 107-116. doi: 10.4236/aim.2015.52011.