Open Access

REVIEW

Interaction between Earthworms and Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi in Plants: A Review

by Lulu Meng¹, A. K. Srivastava², Kamil Kuča³, Bhoopander Giri⁴, Mohammed Mahabubur Rahman⁵, Qiangsheng Wu^1,3,*

1 College of Horticulture and Gardening, Yangtze University, Jingzhou, 434025, China
2 ICAR-Central Citrus Research Institute, Nagpur, Maharashtra, 440033, India
3 Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Hradec Kralove, Hradec Kralove, 50003, Czech Republic
4 Department of Botany, Swami Shraddhanand College, University of Delhi, Delhi, 110007, India
5 Natural Science Unit, Tokyo Gakugei University, Koganei, Tokyo, 184-8501, Japan

* Corresponding Author: Qiangsheng Wu. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Mycorrhizal Fungi and Sustainable Development of Agriculture)

Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany 2021, 90(3), 687-699. https://doi.org/10.32604/phyton.2021.015427

Received 20 December 2020; Accepted 23 February 2021; Issue published 30 March 2021

Abstract

Different kinds of soil animals and microorganisms inhabit the plant rhizosphere, which function closely to plant roots. Of them, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and earthworms play a critical role in sustaining the soil-plant health. Earthworms and AMF belong to the soil community and are soil beneficial organisms at different trophic levels. Both of them improve soil fertility and structural development, collectively promoting plant growth and nutrient acquisition capacity. Earthworm activities redistribute mycorrhizal fungi spores and give diversified effects on root mycorrhizal fungal colonization. Dual inoculation with both earthworms and AMF strongly magnifies the response on plant growth through increased soil enzyme activities and changes in soil nutrient availability, collectively mitigating the negative effects of heavy metal pollution in plants and soils. This thus enhances phytoremediation and plant disease resistance. This review simply outlines the effects of earthworms and AMF on the soil-plant relationship. The effects of earthworms on root AMF colonization and activities are also analyzed. This paper also summarizes the interaction between earthworms and AMF on plants along with suggested future research.

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