Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) form symbiosis with approximately 80% of land plants. The arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis has been extensively studied, however, there is little known about the decision making and foraging behaviors of the fungi themself. Marchantia paleacea is a liverwort and a model plant for studying the arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis. This plant has many advantages for this due to its size and ease of cultivation as well as the possibility to observe fungal colonization in its rhizoids. It also gives us a clue about how some of the first land living plants interacted with fungi to overcome the many stresses of colonizing land.
One of the reasons why the study of AMF is difficult is because they are obligate symbionts. They can survive only a few weeks after germination without a host plant. In this project we will use a medium developed by Tanaka et al., 2022 that allow the autonomous growth of AMF. By growing AMF together with Marchantia on this particular medium or not, we can further assess the decision-making processes of the fungus.
During this project, you will be involved in all aspects of the experiment: setting the AMF cultures, growing them with Marchantia, inoculating the plants, monitoring the fungal growth and plant colonization using microscopy and images analysis of results.
Duration: 45-60 cr MSc project
Contact: Ayla Mongés ayla.monges@biol.lu.se, Kristin Aleklett Kadish kristin.aleklett_kadish@biol.lu.se