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Saprophytic Growth of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi

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Mycorrhiza

Abstract

Strictly speaking the title of this chapter is a contradiction. If “saprophytic growth” is growth exhibited by an organism in a free-living status, it is obvious that this term cannot apply to arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) as none of the 130 species of AMF (Walker 1992) have yet been successfully cultured axenically. These fungi have a low, or negligible, saprophytic ability and can apparently produce viable propagules only upon the biotrophic colonization of a susceptible host root. They are thus considered physiologically obligate symbionts and the related literature reflects the failure to grow them on synthetic media (Azcón-Aguilar and Barea 1992). There are descriptions, however, of limited saprophytic development of AMF which takes place either in soil, prior to any contact with the host root, or even “in vitro” (Azcón-Aguilar and Barea 1985; Koske and Gemma 1992). It is this saprophytic growth which will be discussed in this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Estación Experimental del Zaidin, CSIC, Profesor Albareda 1, 18008, Granada, Spain

    J. M. Barea

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  1. C. Azcón-Aguilar
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  2. J. M. Barea
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 110067, New Delhi, India

    Ajit Varma

  2. Lehrstuhl für Botanik, Technische Universität München, 85350, Freising, Germany

    Bertold Hock

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© 1995 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Azcón-Aguilar, C., Barea, J.M. (1995). Saprophytic Growth of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi. In: Varma, A., Hock, B. (eds) Mycorrhiza. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-08897-5_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-08897-5_17

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-662-08899-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-08897-5

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