ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Mohamed H. Al-Whaibi
Department of Botany and Microbiology, College of Science, King Saud University, P.O. Box # 2455, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia.
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2009;3(2):457-466
© The Author(s). 2009
Received: 04/08/2009 | Accepted: 16/09/2009| Published: 31/10/2009
Abstract

In natural ecosystems, roots of most plants have mycorrhizae as a major part of the rhizosphere. Although desert ecosystems are characterized by low density of vegetation cover, mycorrhizae are common as a necessity for the existence of the ecosystem. This mini-review includes sample reports of the last decades of the past century up till now reporting the presence of fungi in soils in most world deserts, presumably mycorrhizae. Moreover, the physiological role and the suggested role in the establishment of plants in disturbed land of these mycorrhizae have been explored. The overall summary is that desert ecosystems are not different from other ecosystem in the presence of mycorrhizae. These mycorrhizae might affect nutrient acquisition such as P, N, Fe, Zn, K and others. They also increase plant adaptation to drought and some other stresses.

Keywords

Desert, Arid and Semi-arid lands, Mycorrhizae, Water relations, Nutrients, Drought

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© The Author(s) 2009. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.