Weed-mediated stability of arbuscular mycorrhizal effectiveness in maize monocultures

An experimental design was created to investigate the influence of the acco mpanying flora of maize monocultures on the effectiveness of indigenous arb uscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) under field conditions. The monoculture of maize without any accompanying flora resulted in a loss of spore types in t he mycorrhizal community and lower effectiveness of the persistent AMF popu lations under both field and greenhouse conditions. In contrast, the presen ce of mycorrhizal hosts in the accompanying flora guaranteed the persistenc e of a diverse indigenous AMF spore community, its high effectiveness in re lation to the crop plant, and over-compensated weed-mediated reduction of b iomass production of the crop plant. The role of a weed community tolerated at a low level on the effectiveness of the symbiosis on crop host plants i s discussed.