Friends to the rescue: using arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi to future-proof Australian agriculture
Meike Katharina Heuck A * , Christina Birnbaum B C and Adam Frew A CA Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia.
B School of Agriculture and Environmental Science, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Qld 4350, Australia.
C Centre for Crop Health, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Qld 4370, Australia.
Meike Katharina Heuck is a PhD candidate at the Western Sydney University and passionate about food security in times of climate change. Her main focus is the interaction between arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and plants to facilitate a sustainable agriculture. |
Dr Christina Birnbaum is a lecturer in terrestrial ecology at the University of Southern Queensland. She uses field observations, combined with experimental manipulations and molecular tools to explore questions pertaining plant–microbe interactions to inform invasive plant species management, restoration ecology and plant–microbial dynamics. |
Dr Adam Frew is a Lecturer and ARC DECRA fellow at the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment and Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the University of Southern Queensland. His research explores interactions between soil microbiota and plants, and how these relationships interact with herbivory. |
Microbiology Australia 44(1) 5-8 https://doi.org/10.1071/MA23002
Submitted: 16 February 2023 Accepted: 27 February 2023 Published: 10 March 2023
© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the ASM. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
With a rising global population and the challenges of climate change, there is an increasing need to find solutions to maintain crop yields in an ecologically sustainable way. Although many studies have focussed on this issue, comparatively few are conducted in the southern hemisphere. This is worrisome because the geographical and geomorphological conditions within Australia differ greatly from the northern hemisphere. To ensure food security, approaches can rely on conventional agricultural methods as well as commercial arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal inoculants. Both approaches lack the capacity to be successful in the long term or could have unknown negative effects on the naturally occurring microbial communities. We advocate for a sustainable and holistic approach that combines the effective management of functionally diverse AM fungal communities with precision farming techniques while integrating landscape elements into agricultural fields. In addition, landowners and scientists should collaborate and communicate their work with industry and government to take forward the shift to a more-sustainable agriculture. In this way, we will be better able to secure our food production while restoring our soil ecosystems.
Keywords: arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, Australia, conventional agriculture, food security, multifunctionality.
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