Search

All plants need a nutrient called phosphorus to grow and thrive. Phosphorus is found in soil, but the supply is limited so plants often struggle to acquire enough of it. To overcome this problem, many plants form friendly relationships (or symbioses) with certain fungi in the soil known as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. The fungi colonize plant roots and supply phosphorus and other nutrients in return for sugars and various molecules. Although many crop plants – including barley and potatoes – are able to form these symbioses, farmers commonly apply fertilizers containing phosphate and other nutrients to their fields to increase the amount of food they produce. Breeding new crop varieties that are better at forming symbioses with the fungi could reduce the need for fertilizers. However, the methods currently available to study these relationships are laborious and time-consuming, typically requiring samples of plant roots to be examined in a laboratory. Wang, Schafer et al. used an approach called metabolomics to search for molecules in coyote tobacco plants that indicate the plants have formed symbioses with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. The experiments found that a group of molecules called blumenols accumulate in the roots and also in the shoots and leaves of plants with these symbioses, but not in the tobacco plants that were not able to associate with the fungi. Experiments in several other plant species including tomato, potato and barley produced similar findings, suggesting that the blumenols may be a useful and potentially universal indicator of symbioses between many different plants and fungi. Measuring the levels of blumenols in plant shoots and leaves is much quicker and easier than current methods of identifying fungal symbioses in plant root samples. Therefore, blumenols may be a useful tool for plant breeders who would like to screen large numbers of plants for these symbioses, and breed crops that negotiate better interactions with the beneficial fungi.