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A mycorrhiza is a symbiotic association between a green plant and a fungus. The plant makes organic molecules by photosynthesis and supplies them to the fungus in the form of sugars or lipids, while the fungus supplies the plant with water and mineral nutrients, such as phosphorus, taken from the soil.
Basidiomycota fungi form ecto-, orchid, monotropoid, arbutoid, and some ericoid mycorrhizae. Fungal hyphae are thinner than plant roots, which allows them to penetrate areas in the soil with moisture and nutrient that are inaccessible to roots. In some cases, mycorrhizal fungi in the mycorrhizosphere may ward off fungal plant pathogens.
Arbuscular mycorrhizal networks are those in which fungal hyphae not only enter the plant's roots but also penetrate into the cells themselves. Ectomycorrhizal networks send hyphae into the roots where they thread their way between the plant cells but do not penetrate cell walls. The arbuscular type is the most common among land plants and is ...
Further evidence that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi exhibit host-specific chemotaxis, that enable hyphal growth toward the roots of a potential host plant: Spores of Glomus mosseae were separated from the roots of a host plant, nonhost plants, and dead host plant by a membrane permeable only to hyphae. In the treatment with the host plant, the ...
Mycorrhizal fungi can extend a great distance into bulk soil, [5] thereby increasing the root system's reach and surface area, enabling mycorrhizal fungi to acquire a large percentage of its host plant's nutrients. In some ecosystems, up to 80% of plant nitrogen and 90% of plant phosphorus is acquired by mycorrhizal fungi. [14]
The ericoid mycorrhiza is a mutualistic relationship formed between members of the plant family Ericaceae and several lineages of mycorrhizal fungi. This symbiosis represents an important adaptation to acidic and nutrient poor soils that species in the Ericaceae typically inhabit, [ 1 ] including boreal forests , bogs , and heathlands .
Mucoromycotina and Glomeromycotina can form mycorrhiza-like relationships with nonvascular plants. [5] Mucoromycota contain multiple mycorrhizal lineages, [6] root endophytes, [7] and decomposers of plant-based carbon sources. [8] Mucoromycotina species known as mycoparasites, or putative parasites of arthropods are like saprobes.
Those fungi that are able to live symbiotically with living plants, creating a relationship that is beneficial to both, are known as mycorrhizae (from myco meaning fungal and rhiza meaning root). Plant root hairs are invaded by the mycelia of the mycorrhiza, which lives partly in the soil and partly in the root, and may either cover the length ...