Abstract
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are obligate plant symbionts of most land plants. In these organisms, thousands of nuclei that are either genetically similar (homokaryotic) or derived from two distinct parents (dikaryotic) co-exist in a large syncytium. Here, we investigated the impact of these two nuclear organizations on the mycorrhizal response of potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) by inoculating four potato cultivars with eight Rhizophagus irregularis strains individually (four homokaryotic and four dikaryotic). By evaluating plant and fungal fitness-related traits four months post inoculation, we found that AMF genetic organization significantly affects the mycorrhizal response of host plants. Specifically, homokaryotic strains lead to higher total, shoot, and tuber biomass and a higher number of tubers, compared to dikaryotic strains. However, fungal fitness-related traits showed no clear differences between homokaryotic and dikaryotic strains. Nucleotype content analysis of single spores confirmed that the nucleotype ratio of AMF heterokaryon spores can shift depending on host identity. Together, these findings continue to highlight significant ecological differences derived from the two distinct genetic organizations in AMF.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Andrew Vigars and Savannah Pilgrim for their assistance in lab.
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Our research was funded by the Discovery Program of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (RGPIN2020-05643), a Discovery Accelerator Supplements Program (RGPAS-2020–00033). NC is a University of Ottawa Research Chair and VK was supported by the MITACS Industrial PDF program (IT16902) and by the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) through the project J-002272.
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N.C. and V.K. conceived and designed the experiments. V.K. maintained and propagated the potato in-vitro plantlets. V.T. maintained and propagated the AMF strains. V.T., V.K., and B.T. established the greenhouse experiment. V.T. monitored the greenhouse experiment for its duration and V.T., V.K., B.T., M.V.L., and C.C. harvested the experiment. Z.Z. performed the plant tissue nutrient analysis, K.C. quantified the spores, V.T. and M.V.L. quantified the mycorrhizal colonization and the plant biomass, V.T. performed the ddPCR analysis for nucleotype abundance. V.T. and V.K. performed the statistical analysis. V.T., N.C., and V.K. drafted the manuscript, and all co-authors discussed the results and contributed to the final version of the manuscript.
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Terry, V., Kokkoris, V., Villeneuve-Laroche, M. et al. Mycorrhizal response of Solanum tuberosum to homokaryotic versus dikaryotic arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Mycorrhiza 33, 333–344 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00572-023-01123-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00572-023-01123-7