From Monoculture to Norfolk System: How the Number of Crops in Rotation Can Influence the Biodiversity of Arbuscular Mycorrhiza Assemblages in the Soil

Given the attention drawn since several decades by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) as potential biological alternatives to chemicals in a low-input agriculture, much effort has been spent in the investigation of mechanisms influencing the dynamics inside AMF communities. In the present study we evaluated the influence of different crop rotations on the AMF soil community, after a 50 y long-term field experiment established at Martonvásár, Hungary. Four types of crop rotation were chosen for sampling: corn monocropping, corn-alfalfa, corn-wheat, and corn-spring barley-peas-wheat. Community composition of AMF in soil was analyzed with a molecular approach amplifying a portion of 28S rDNA. The crop rotation practice didn’t show an influence on identity of the species composing AMF assemblages, but on the other hand seemed to affect positively the true diversity, defined as number of MOTUs present in the communities.