Exploring arbuscular mycorrhizal colonization in Agave tequilana: Insights into mycorrhizal partnerships of an emerging crop
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2025
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Salomon, M.J.
Burton, R.A.
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Mycorrhiza, 2025; 35(5):52-1-52-14
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Matthias Johannes Salomon, Rachel Anita Burton
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This study explores the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi associations of Agave tequilana, an emerging crop with significant commercial potential that is increasingly being grown outside its native distribution in the arid regions of the Americas. A greenhouse experiment was conducted using field-collected soil inoculum from various locations in South Australia to inoculate A. tequilana plus Plantago lanceolata as a comparative model host. Metagenomic sequencing of the colonized roots with AM fungal-specific amplicons assessed the AM fungal community structure. The Shannon alpha diversity was similar between both plant species, and both predominantly associated with the genus Glomus. However, A. tequilana had a narrower AM fungal community compared to P. lanceolata, which was associated with a broader diversity of AM fungi. Beta diversity analysis of the AM fungal community composition revealed that the factor species (agave/plantago) was significant (p = 0.0001), whereas the inoculum location was not (p = 0.29). The association of A. tequilana with AM fungi from the family Acaulosporaceae, as found in Mexican studies, could not be confirmed. These findings suggest a specialized adaptation of A. tequilana to specific AM fungal species, which could have important implications for using AM fungi in sustainable agave production when cultivated outside their native regions.
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© The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.o rg/licenses/by/4.0/.