Mycorrhizal Fungi Communities Associated with Wild Plants in a Desert Soil of Saudi Arabia

In most environments, plants roots are exposed to several mycorrhizal fungal species. This fact has significant ecological consequences. The ability to colonize different host genotypes and promote plant growth, and adaptation to abiotic factors that are likely to affect both the establishment and progress of a beneficial symbiosis and their dissemination in the ecosystem. Deserts cover most of Saudi Arabia lands with some meadows that depend on rainwater, despite its scarcity. Under these harsh conditions, some desert plants grow like some types of trees, shrubs, herbs and weeds. Mycorrhiza from the desert plants near Riyadh were found associated with the roots of native trees, weeds and shrubs such as Acacia gerrardii and Trigonella anguina wild. It appears that mycorrhiza of desert plants not only supply the plants with nutrients but also supply moisture during the dry season, at times taking the place of root hairs. Our results in this work show that the soils of Al-Khabiah meadow have relatively higher available Cu, Fe, Mn, Zn, P and K as well as higher soil organic matter content (1.264%) compared with the bare soil or the other studied meadows. The highest spore population was recorded with Rhayza stricta plants (1170) from Al- Masoudi meadows which was followed by Calotropis procera plants and Ziziphus nummularia plants and the lowest was recorded with Hamada elegans plants. The overall mycorrhizal infectivity (colonization %) of the selected wild plant species collected from different locations are varied widely and independently irrespective of plant species and locations. The spore population was higher in some soil, but the infectivity of plants was less. The percentage infection in the roots of different species with the mycorrhizal fungi varied significantly. The highest infection was at Al- Khabia meadows and there was no infection with Launaea capitata, Ziziphus nummularia and Rhayza stricta plants. The range of infections in Shoaib Harimla was 0- 69.08 with the highest with the Trigonella anguina. There was no infection with Calotropis procera and Ziziphus nummularia. In Al-Khrarah meadows three species (Launaea capitata, Rhayza stricta and Ziziphus nummularia) did not have any infection and the highest infection was recorded with Acacia gerrardi planri plant.