The role of community and population ecology in applying mycorrhizal fungi for improved food security, Rodriguez & Sanders 2015

Given that nitrogen and phosphorus are the most limiting nutrients for crop growth, that global phosphorus supplies are becoming exhausted while the human population rapidly expands, and that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) symbioses improve crop phosphorus acquisition, AMF symbioses have a major role to play in current and future crop production.

The potential of AMF to help increase global food security lies in the fact that all globally important food crops naturally form this symbiosis and the fungi help plants more efficiently obtain phosphate from the soil (Smith and Read, 2008). Stocks of phosphate fertilizer are rapidly being depleted (Gross, 2010). There is a simultaneous increase in demand for phosphate to help feed the growing population (Gilbert, 2009). These two combined factors represent a major threat to global food security; a threat that can potentially be reduced by better phosphate acquisition through the AM[F] symbiosis. The potential of AMF to contribute to improved crop yields has been known for decades [Rodriquez & Sanders 2015: 1054].

However, for the widespread adoption of AMF inoculation to be effective and safe, a better understanding is needed of ecological principles related to soil fungi. The authors note that few studies have linked crop yield increases with successful colonization by an introduced AMF, and they outline several challenges and questions that should be resolved to pursue this promising technique more broadly. For example, they ask whether introduced AMF establish well, and how they affect native AMF populations, and how genetic diversity in AMF populations variously affects different crops.