Relationship between mycorrhizal fungi and eucalyptus species with different levels of water stress tolerance

• Grant number: 18/12665-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Effective date (Start): September 05, 2018
• Effective date (End): January 04, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Agronomy - Soil Science
• Principal Investigator: Elke Jurandy Bran Nogueira Cardoso
• Grantee: Bruna Andréia de Bacco Lopes
• Supervisor: Siobhán Staunton
• Host Institution: Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Institute de Recherche pour le Développement, Marseille (IRD), France
• Associated to the scholarship: 17/16608-9 - Relationship between mycorrhizal fungi and eucalyptus species with different levels of water stress tolerance, BP.MS

Abstract

Eucalyptus species account almost 80% of the forests planted in Brazil, which makes silviculture an activity of great importance in the national and international scenario. Despite its adaptability, eucalyptus is subject to damages that climate change can cause, especially the water deficit. Most plants have survival strategies in water deficit situations. Association with mycorrhizal fungi (FM) is one of them, since they increase water and nutrients uptake by the roots. Thus, the main objective of this work is to evaluate the colonization of mycorrhizal fungi in six Eucalyptus species with different levels of drought tolerance. Two essays will be carried out: one in the field and other in a greenhouse. In greenhouse, pots will be submitted to different levels of water: 50, 75 and 100% of field capacity during three months. In the field, samples will be collected in two different periods: after the dry period and after the rainy season. The soil samples and fine roots collected from the two experiments will be submitted to microbiological and molecular analyzes. FM root colonization will be evaluated, the ITS genes analyzed by quantitative PCR (qPCR) and the fungal community structure by restriction fragment polymorphism (T-RFLP). Then, all data will be analyzed statistically. (AU)