Chin J Plan Ecolo ›› 2015, Vol. 39 ›› Issue (5): 477-485.DOI: 10.17521/cjpe.2015.0046

• Research Articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of endophyte and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi on growth of Leymus chinensis

LIU Hui, CHEN Wei, ZHOU Yong, LI Xia, REN An-Zhi, GAO Yu-Bao*   

  1. College of Life Sciences, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
  • Received:2014-11-27 Revised:2015-04-14 Online:2015-05-01 Published:2015-05-26

Abstract: Aims Endophyte not only enhance plant resistance to biotic and abiotic stress but also have the positive effect on the growth of the host plants. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can improve plant mineral nutrition uptake and storage. Endophyte and AMF coexist in Leymus chinensis. Our objective was to investigate the effects of endophyte and / or AMF on the growth of Leymus chinensis.Methods We conducted a pot experiment combining two endophyte infection status (endophyte-infected, EI; endophyte-free, EF) and three mycorrhizal inoculation treatments (Glmous etunicatum, Ge; G. mosseae, Gm and non-inoculation, M-), using L. chinensis plants as a model. There were five replicates per treatment. The experiment was carried out at the campus experimental field at Nankai University.Important findings Endophyte presence had no impact on the hyphal colonization of the two AMF species, but significantly increased tillers, shoot biomass and total biomass of L. chinensis. Interspecific symbiotic interactions varied with partner identity. Glmous etunicatum had no impacts on plant growth and no interaction with endophyte; G. mosseae alone significantly increased plant shoot, root and total biomass but had antagonistic impact on endophyte when coexisting with endophyte. Redundancy analysis showed that endophyte had the largest impact on the host growth, G. mosseae contributed to plant growth to some extent and G. etunicatum had no significant effect on the endophyte and negligible impacts on plant biomass.