Compatibility and incompatibility in hyphal anastomosis of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), which live in symbiosis with 80 % of plants, are not able to grow when separated from their hosts. Spore germination is not host-regulated and germling growth is shortly arrested in the absence of host roots. Germling survival chances may be increased by hyphal fusions (anastomoses), which allow access to nutrients flowing in the extraradical mycelium (ERM). Perfect anastomoses, occurring with high frequency among germlings and the ERM of the same isolate, show protoplasm continuity and disappearance of hyphal walls. A low frequency of perfect fusions has been detected among co-specific genetically different isolates, although fungal nuclei have been consistently detected in all perfect fusions, suggesting active nuclear migration. When plants of different taxa establish symbioses with the same AMF species, anastomoses between ERM spreading from single root systems establish a common mycelium, which is an essential element to plant nutrition and communication. The interaction among mycelia produced by different isolates may also lead to pre-fusion incompatibility which hinders anastomosis formation, or to incompatibility after fusion, which separates the hyphal compartments. Results reported here, obtained by analyses of hyphal compatibility/ incompatibility in AMF, suggest that anastomosis formation and establishment of protoplasm flow, fundamental to the maintenance of mycelial physiological and genetic continuity, may affect the fitness of these ecologically important biotrophic fungi.