ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbial Symbioses
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1582476
This article is part of the Research TopicUnveiling Microbiome Interactions and Functions in Soil HotspotsView all 7 articles
Diversity, characteristics and abundance of native arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in semi-arid of eastern Kenya
Provisionally accepted
- 1Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya
- 2One CGIAR, Impact Area Platform on Environmental Health and Biodiversity, Nairobi, Kenya
- 3International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (Tanzania), East African hub, Tanzania
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Elucidating native arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi diversity is critical for the sustainable management of semi-arid land ecosystems. This is because they significantly improve plant nutrient uptake and decrease the stress caused by biotic and abiotic factors. Here, we examined the AM fungal communities and key drivers influencing their diversity and occurrence in the smallholder farming systems of eastern Kenya. Soils were sampled from 34 contrasting agricultural fields, and the AM fungi spores were extracted by applying wet-sieving and decantation techniques. The spores were quantified, and AM fungal communities were identified using morphological characteristics. The statistical data analyses were performed on relative abundance, Shannon-wiener index, ANOVA, and principal component analysis (PCA) using R software 4.4.0. Results revealed two AM fungal families dominated the agricultural fields, namely Gigasporaceae (61.0%) and Acaulosporaceae (39.0%). These comprised a total of five genera with the relative abundance of Acaulospora (39.0%), Gigaspora (35.05%), Scutellospora (23.92%), Dentiscutata (1.32%), and Rococetra (0.72%). The AM fungi morpho-species ranked from 1 to 26 in the five genera. Acaulospora denticulata ranked the highest with a proportion of 25.19%. The Shannon Weiner diversity index revealed higher AM fungi diversity in agricultural fields with high spore richness. The PCA showed that the composition of AM fungal communities was strongly related to soil physiochemical characteristics. Dryland farming systems also played a role in AM fungal composition. Generally, the distribution of AM fungal communities in agricultural fields was lower, implying the need to adopt sustainable dryland farming systems for intensifying native AM fungal communities and the development of context-specific biofertilizers.
Keywords: Microbial Diversity, Native microbiome, Spore morphological analysis, ecosystem services, sustainable farming
Received: 24 Feb 2025; Accepted: 28 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sakha, Gweyi, Masso and Baijukya. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Michael Sakha, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya
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