Ecological Study on Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi in the Soils around Leguminous Plants in Korea

From 12 August to 21 November in 1991, 65 soil specimens were collected from nineteen leguminous plant roots throughout nine locations of four provinces. They were sieved to collect and identify the arbuscular mycorrhizal spores (four genera, 21 species). The species of Glomus were most commonly (47.6% of all observations) found, but the species of Gigaspora (about 4.8% of all observations) occurred infrequently or rarely rather than the species of the other genera. The most common arbuscular mycorrhizal species at nine locations were Acaulospora laevis and Glomus laminated spores cf. macrocarpus var. macrocarpus. All of nineteen legume plant species collected were found to be associated with the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi . Cassia mimosoides var. nomame and Kummerowia striata in legume plants had the great frequency of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi associated with their roots. The number of isolated spores were ranged from 0.3 to 10.0 spores per 10g of soil. The species diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal spores at the disturbed areas were calculated to be bigger than those in the natural vegetation areas.