Unraveling differential effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi species on the performance of tomato plants infected with the plant parasitic nematode Meloidogyne incognita

CACCIA, MILENA; NOVAK, VACLAV; JANOUKOVÁ, MARTINA; MARRO, NICOLÁS

Marseille

Congreso; XIV International Conference of the French Society of Plant Biology; 2023

French Society of Plant Biology

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of different strains of arbuscular mycorrhizalfungi (AMF) as biocontrol agents against the parasitic root knot nematode Meloidogyneincognita on tomato plants. In greenhouse, the experimental design had two factors: 1) AMF(4 treatments with different AMF isolates + non-AMF control), and 2) Nematodes(simultaneous inoculation with AMF [T1], inoculation 2 weeks after AMF [T2], and nonnematode control). After 60 days, nematodes in T1 reduced the biomass of non-AMF plants,while inoculation with any of the AMF isolates counterbalanced this deleterious effect. In T1,two out of the four AMF isolates increased the number of nematode galls, while one AMFisolate increased the nematode reproduction in T2. These results showed that AMF did notreduce nematode development but counteracted their damage on plants growth in T1. Geneexpression analyses of plant hormones will be conducted to elucidate the complex plantAMF-nematode interaction.