Assessment of Endophytic Population and Diversity in Different Plants Growing in Saline Soils
2023
Priyanka Chandra | Pooja Dhuli | Awtar Singh | Madhu Choudhary | Kailash Prajapat | AK Rai | RK Yadav
Endophytes including bacteria and fungi are associated with plants in various forms and are known to colonized inside the plant tissues and provide beneficial functions including plant tolerance under abiotic stress conditions. Hence, the present study was planned to assess the endophytic population in roots of plants growing in saline soils (ECe ~ 2-10 dS m-1). Results demonstrated presence of bacterial and fungal endophytic population inside the roots of plants which ranged from 0.17 to 3.7 × 102 CFU and 0.16 to 3.36 × 102 CFU, respectively. Fungal endophytes positively correlated with ECe (r2=0.77) and pH2 (r2=0.98) of the soils, similarly endophytic bacteria also positively correlated with ECe (r2=0.5) and pH2 (r2=0.79). Diversity indices positively related with soil electrical conductivity while opposite was the case for soil pH. The dendogram demonstrated the relationship among the plants to harbor endophytes in their roots. The first cluster comprised of Chenopodium murale (Sr1), Launaea nudicaulis (Sr2), and Tritium aestivum (Sr4). The second group constituted two crops namely Spergulla arvensis (Sr3) and Brassica jauncea (Sr4). While the third cluster included only Phalaris minor (Sr5). The results of cluster analysis indicates the closeness and similarities of the two different crops on basis of their root properties. The present study provides an insight to the presence of microbial endophytes inside roots of plants growing in saline areas which can be further screened for their plant growth-promoting potential.
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