AUTHOR=Li Jing , Jia Lijuan , Struik Paul C. , An Zhengfeng , Wang Zhen , Xu Zhuwen , Ji Lei , Yao Yuqing , Lv Junjie , Zhou Tao , Jin Ke 

TITLE=Plant and soil responses to tillage practices change arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi populations during crop growth

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology

VOLUME=15

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2024.1394104

DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2024.1394104

ISSN=1664-302X

ABSTRACT=<sec id="sec1"><title>Background</title><p>Tillage practices can substantially affect soil properties depending on crop stage. The interaction between tillage and crop growth on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) communities remains unclear. We investigated the interactions between four tillage treatments (CT: conventional tillage, RT: reduced tillage, NT: no tillage with mulch, and SS: subsoiling with mulch), maintained for 25 years, and two wheat growth stages (elongation stage and grain filling stage) on AMF diversity and community composition.</p></sec><sec id="sec2"><title>Results</title><p>The AMF community composition strongly changed during wheat growth, mainly because of changes in the relative abundance of dominant genera <italic>Claroideoglomus</italic>, <italic>Funneliformi</italic>, <italic>Rhizophagu</italic>, <italic>Entrophospora</italic>, and <italic>Glomus</italic>. Co-occurrence network analysis revealed that the grain filling stage had a more complex network than the elongation stage. Redundancy analysis results showed that keystone genera respond mainly to changes in soil organic carbon during elongation stage, whereas the total nitrogen content affected the keystone genera during grain filling. Compared with CT, the treatments with mulch, i.e., NT and SS, significantly changed the AMF community composition. The change of AMF communities under different tillage practices depended on wheat biomass and soil nutrients. NT significantly increased the relative abundances of <italic>Glomus</italic> and <italic>Septoglomus</italic>, while RT significantly increased the relative abundance of <italic>Claroideoglomus.</italic></p></sec><sec id="sec3"><title>Conclusion</title><p>Our findings indicate that the relative abundance of dominant genera changed during wheat growth stages. Proper tillage practices (e.g., NT and SS) benefit the long-term sustainable development of the Loess Plateau cropping systems.</p></sec>