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What Is the Role of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi in Mitigating the Effects of Microplastics?
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This review summarizes 29 studies on soil fungi called arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), which form partnerships with plant roots. Most studies found AMF helped plants cope with microplastic pollution in soil by improving growth, nutrient uptake, and soil structure, though the authors note more research is needed on long-term effects.
Microplastics (MPs) represent a growing threat to terrestrial ecosystems, affecting soil physicochemical properties, nutrient availability, and plant physiology. These contaminants promote the formation of the plastisphere, a soil–plastic interface that alters microbial dynamics. In this context, symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) emerges as an agrobiotechnology strategy to mitigate such effects by promoting plant growth, increasing photosynthetic rate, regulating hormonal balance, and enhancing antioxidant activity. Despite existing studies on this topic, approaches gathering studies that evaluated the effects of mycorrhization for plant hosts’ antioxidant specialized metabolism and physiology under MP stress conditions have not been utilized. Therefore, this narrative review aimed to assess the role of AMF-induced changes for mitigating microplastic stress in plant hosts and the rhizosphere. For that, a search of the literature was conducted on the Web of Science database, recovering 165 unique records, which were screened to 29 eligible papers. AMF mitigated MP stress (27 of 29 studies) by improving plant growth, enhancing nutrient uptake, and alleviating heavy metal stress, highlighting its potential role for biomitigation. Additionally, AMF can improve soil aggregation by the production of glomalin-related soil proteins, contributing to the stabilization of micro- and macroaggregates. To address current gaps and limitations, future approaches should prioritize integrated studies, including investigating MPs’ effects on mean infection percentage (MIP) of the mycorrhizal inoculum, AMF’s role in plant antioxidant response, defense metabolite (terpene, proanthocyanidin, and phenolic acids) accumulation, and interactions between root exudates and the rhizosphere environment, as well as long-term field experiments, to improve the understanding of mycorrhizal mechanisms involved in mitigating the damage caused by microplastics.
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Potential Effects of Microplastic on Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi
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This review examines how microplastics in soil affect arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, finding evidence that microplastics can alter fungal colonization of plant roots, spore production, and the broader soil microbiome, with cascading effects on plant nutrient uptake.
Effects of microplastic types and shapes on the community structure of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in different soil types
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Researchers examined how different types and shapes of microplastics affect arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi communities across various soil types. The study found that microplastics alter soil structure and chemistry in ways that disrupt these beneficial fungi, which play crucial roles in nutrient exchange, soil stability, and water movement.
Effects of microplastics on the plant-arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal symbiotic system: type, size, and concentration
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This review examines how different types, sizes, and concentrations of microplastics affect the symbiotic relationship between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in soil. The study found that low microplastic concentrations may stimulate fungal colonization, while higher levels generally inhibit it, and that biodegradable microplastics and nanoplastics tend to have stronger effects on the plant-fungal system than conventional microplastics.
Migration and accumulation of microplastics in soil-plant systems mediated by symbiotic microorganisms and their ecological effects
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This study found that beneficial soil fungi (mycorrhizal fungi) actually accelerate the uptake of smaller microplastics by plant roots while slowing the uptake of larger ones. The microplastics disrupted the symbiotic relationship between the fungi and plants, reducing plant nutrient absorption and growth, which matters because crops grown in microplastic-contaminated soil may be less nutritious.
Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Can Inhibit the Allocation of Microplastics from Crop Roots to Aboveground Edible Parts
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Scientists discovered that beneficial soil fungi called arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi can reduce the amount of microplastics that travel from plant roots into the edible parts of lettuce. Plants grown with these fungi transported significantly fewer plastic particles to their leaves compared to plants without them. The findings suggest that natural fungal partnerships in soil could serve as a biological barrier helping protect food crops from microplastic contamination.
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