Biodiversity of arbuscular mycorrhiza fungi isolated from soils of Teberda and Tigirekskiy Nature Reserves

The aim of the project is to monitor biodiversity and assess the symbiotic efficiency and activity of arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) fungi isolated from the undisturbed ecosystems of the North Caucasus and the Altai Krai - two centers of diversity of flora and mycobiota in Russia. AM is one of the oldest and most common types of symbiosis between plants and fungi. AM leads to an increase in supply of nutrients into a plant, reduction of the negative effects of drought and salinization, and improvement of the water balance. The investigation of AM, its symbiotic efficiency and activity using Illumina MiSeq, methods of phylogenetics, biochemistry and plant physiology is a currently important research direction in modern biology. The scientific novelty of our research is determined by the fact that AM fungi are traditionally studied in a small number of laboratory strains and few genetic collections, whereas in our case a large-scale study of natural intergeneric, interspecific and intraspecific genetic polymorphism of AM fungi from various undisturbed ecosystems of the North Caucasus (Teberda Nature Reserve) and the Altai krai (Tigirekskiy Nature Reserve) is planned. AM fungi isolates will be obtained and evaluated for their symbiotic efficiency and activity, specific changes in the expression of genes involved in the formation of effective AM (carbohydrate metabolism genes of the host plant and genes of phosphorus transport), as well as genes involved in plant adaptation to drought conditions will be assessed. The planned results of the research have both practical and theoretical significance. They will help to answer a number of questions concerning the specificity of molecular genetic identification of AM-fungi, their phylogeny, and to estimate the diversity of AM-fungi in undisturbed ecosystems of the Caucasus and Altai for the first time. Addition of new efficient AM-fungi isolates the unique collection of the All-Russia Research Institute for Agricultural Microbiology will contribute to the practical implementation of the most effective and active of the new-found AM-isolates for their introduction into the agriculture of regions of Russia as an enhancer of growth and adaptation of herbaceous plants to environmental stress factors, as well as for recovery of imbalance in agroecosystems.