Heike Bucking - Mycorrhizal Research

Heike Bucking - Mycorrhizal research
Heike Bucking. Rutgers University, New Jersey

For approximately 80 % - 90 % of all known plant species, mycorrhizal roots dominate nutrient uptake at the soil/plant interface. The mycorrhiza, a close association between plants and various fungal species is extremely important for the uptake of P and N, but also contributes to the uptake of various trace elements such as Cu and Zn (Bücking and Heyser 1994). Besides this positive effect of mycorrhizal fungi on nutrient uptake, the mycorrhizal infection can also improve the tolerance of plants to different stress factors like pathogen infections, drought and heavy metals. To maintain the mycorrhizal fungal structures, around 20 % of the assimilated carbon from the plant is translocated to the fungal symbiont in both arbuscular- and ectomycorrhizal associations.

Ectomycorrhizal roots in particular can be entirely dependent on the nutrient supply by the fungal symbiotic partner as they are completely surrounded by fungal hyphae. The fungal sheath can form an effective apoplastic barrier for the entry of water and nutrients from the soil into the root cortex (Bücking et al. 2001, Bücking et al. 2002). If the fungal mantle is impermeable to nutrient ions, the underlying root tissue is isolated from the soil solution and this necessitates the uptake of nutrients from the soil into the fungal symplast. In this case the water and nutrient uptake from the soil solution and the transfer of these nutrients to the mycorrhizal plant are regulated by the mycorrhizal fungus.

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