The Mycorrhizae: Diversity, Ecology and Applications

Many plants benefit greatly from symbiotic relationship with soil fungi known as mycorrhizal fungi. These fungi live on and in the root systems of plants and provide nutrients to the plant in exchange for carbohydrates exuded by the plants. Some of the ecological uses of mycorrhizae include (i) enhancing plant growth and disease resistance, (ii) improving transplant success, (iii) building soil structure. (iv) reducing fertilizer dependency and (v) accelerating revegetation of degraded lands. While over 80 per cent of the Terrestrial Plants Show Mycorrhizal Association, the depth of its application towards industries seems to be under-exploited. Moreover, severe deforestation and land degradation have removed the host plants from the habitats giving way to loss of diversity of the mycorrhizal fungi. Particularly, this problem is acute in the tropical region of the world, where various natural calamities such as floods, landslides, fire, etc. in addition to the human exploitation of natural resources have degraded the major part of the ecosystems. Although, causes are known, strategies to rebuild the degraded systems remain bliss. There are many national and international journals that bring out the information about the mycorrhizal fungi and their symbiotic relationship with plants but the recent knowledge is almost in scattered state. This scattered information could be kept in a book to provide up-to-date information about mycorrhizal research especially being done in different corner of India. This book is a very selective monograph on mycorrhizae covering its different aspects. It is an excellent collection of 21 articles dealing with different disciplines of mycorrhizae and mycorrhizal research carried out by Indian scientists. In order to consummate the collective ideas on mycorrhizal association, its diversity and applications, a number of themes have been identified for this book, including (i) biodiversity and ecological issues on Mycorrhizal Association, (ii) physiology and molecular biology of plant-mycorrhizal fungal interactions, (iii) potential industrial applications. It is doubtless to say that this book would be very useful to all scientists, teachers, students and readers whosoever is interested on mycology and mycological literature.