The Role of AMF Community Composition, Diversity, and Distribution in Sustainable Agroecosystems

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are key soil microbes in ecosystems including agriculture, forestry, grassland, and desert, providing multiple benefits to integrated ecosystem services, especially for plants and soil through their establishment of a symbiotic web. As skilled artisans with uncanny workmanship, AMF with different community diversities distribute and function in various habitats, becoming increasingly important in modern sustainable agricultural production under global changing conditions. However, the importance of the indigenous AMF community functioning in agricultural production systems under global change conditions is often underestimated. Due to the unexpected richness of AMF in agroecosystems and the differences in AMF community diversity (ACD) and composition (ACC) in various habitats, great efforts have been made to understand the mechanisms and influencing factors shaping AMF community structure (ACS). Besides climate and geological factors, plant identity and soil features also shape ACS in local habitats, while the identity of both plant and AMF governs ACC in roots. As AMF and plants depend on, complement, and promote each other, especially influencing each other’s species abundance, community diversity, and distribution, the pivotal and most effective manipulating objects should be AMF and plants to improve species composition and inoculum density in local agricultural production systems. Although there are many challenges in understanding the mechanisms and influencing factors shaping ACS, ACC, and ACD, abundance can be manipulated to obtain more benefits in agricultural productivity and sustainability through a series of actively modified and new integrative management strategies.