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Arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis can mitigate the negative effects of night warming on physiological traits of Medicago truncatula L

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Abstract

Elevated night temperature, one of the main climate warming scenarios, can have profound effects on plant growth and metabolism. However, little attention has been paid to the potential role of mycorrhizal associations in plant responses to night warming, although it is well known that symbiotic fungi can protect host plants against various environmental stresses. In the present study, physiological traits of Medicago truncatula L. in association with the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungus Rhizophagus irregularis were investigated under simulated night warming. A constant increase in night temperature of 1.53 °C significantly reduced plant shoot and root biomass, flower and seed number, leaf sugar concentration, and shoot Zn and root P concentrations. However, the AM association essentially mitigated these negative effects of night warming by improving plant growth, especially through increased root biomass, root to shoot ratio, and shoot Zn and root P concentrations. A significant interaction was observed between R. irregularis inoculation and night warming in influencing both root sucrose concentration and expression of sucrose synthase (SusS) genes, suggesting that AM symbiosis and increased night temperature jointly regulated plant sugar metabolism. Night warming stimulated AM fungal colonization but did not influence arbuscule abundance, symbiosis-related plant or fungal gene expression, or growth of extraradical mycelium, indicating little effect of night warming on the development or functioning of AM symbiosis. These findings highlight the importance of mycorrhizal symbiosis in assisting plant resilience to climate warming.

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Acknowledgments

The study was financially supported by Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX2-YW-BR-17; XDB15030100) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (41071178, 41371264 and 31070476).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China

    Yajun Hu, Songlin Wu, Yuqing Sun, Tao Li, Xin Zhang, Ge Lin & Baodong Chen

  2. Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changsha, 410125, China

    Caiyan Chen

Authors
  1. Yajun Hu
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  2. Songlin Wu
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  3. Yuqing Sun
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  4. Tao Li
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  5. Xin Zhang
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  6. Caiyan Chen
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  7. Ge Lin
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  8. Baodong Chen
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Correspondence to Baodong Chen.

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Hu, Y., Wu, S., Sun, Y. et al. Arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis can mitigate the negative effects of night warming on physiological traits of Medicago truncatula L. Mycorrhiza 25, 131–142 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00572-014-0595-2

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