A Systematic Review of South American and European Mycorrhizal Research: Is there a Need for Scientific Symbiosis?

Integrating perspectives in developing mycorrhizal trait databases: a call for inclusive and collaborative continental efforts

Global assessments of mycorrhizal symbiosis present large sampling gaps in rich biodiversity regions. Filling these gaps is necessary to build large-scale, unbiased mycorrhizal databases to obtain reliable analyses and prevent misleading generalizations. Underrepresented regions in mycorrhizal research are mainly in Africa, Asia, and South America. Despite the high biodiversity and endemism in these regions, many groups of organisms remain understudied, especially mycorrhizal fungi. In this Viewpoint, we emphasize the importance of inclusive and collaborative continental efforts in integrating perspectives for comprehensive trait database development and propose a conceptual framework that can help build large mycorrhizal databases in underrepresented regions. Based on the four Vs of big data (volume, variety, veracity, and velocity), we identify the main challenges of constructing a large mycorrhizal dataset and propose solutions for each challenge. We share our collaborative methodology, which involves employing open calls and working groups to engage all mycorrhizal researchers in the region to build a South American Mycorrhizal Database. By fostering interdisciplinary collaborations and embracing a continental-scale approach, we can create robust mycorrhizal trait databases that provide valuable insights into the evolution, ecology, and functioning of mycorrhizal associations, reducing the geographical biases that are so common in large-scale ecological studies.

Impact of land use history on the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal diversity in arid soils of Argentinean farming fields

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are a key soil functional group, with an important potential to increase crop productivity and sustainable agriculture including food security. However, there is clear evidence that land uses, crop rotations and soil features affect the AMF diversity and their community functioning in many agroecosystems. So far, the information related to AMF biodiversity in ecosystems like the Argentinean Puna, an arid high plateau where plants experience high abiotic stresses, is still scarce. In this work, we investigated morphological and molecular AMF diversity in soils of native corn, bean and native potato Andean crops, under a familiar land use, in Chaupi Rodeo (Jujuy, Argentina), without agrochemical supplements but with different histories of crop rotation. Our results showed that AMF morphological diversity was not only high and variable among the three different crop soils but also complemented by Illumina MiSeq data. The multivariate analyses highlighted that total fungal diversity is significantly affected by the preceding crop plants and the rotation histories, more than from the present crop species, while AMF communities are significantly affected by preceding crop only in combination with the effect of nitrogen and calcium soil concentration. This knowledge will give useful information on appropriate familiar farming.