Some new species of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi symbiotic with sugarcane from Iran

Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) is one of the important agricultural plants adapted to tropical and subtropical areas of the world which has been cultivated for hundreds of years in different regions of Iran. Due to the high dependency of this plant to mycorrhizal fungi for higher growth and yield, the flora of mycorrhizal fungi of sugarcane fields was investigated in Khuzestan province. For this purpose, 64 mixed soil samples were collected from the fields belonged to eight large sugarcane cultivation and industry companies and transferred to the Iranian Research Institute of Plant Protection (Tehran, Iran). Collected spores by wet sieving and decanting method followed by sucrose density gradient centrifugation were used for preparing permanent slides. By examining diagnostic morphological characteristics, 30 species of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, namely, Acaulospora gedanensis, A. herrerae, A. scrobiculata, Archaeospora schenckii, A. trappei, Claroideoglomus claroideum, C. etunicatum, Dentiscutata erythropus, Diversispora gibbosa, Dominikia aurea, Entrophospora infrequens, E. kentinensis, Funneliformis constrictus, F. coronatus, F. geosporus, F. mosseae, Gigaspora rosea, Glomus corymbiforme, G. macrocarpum, G. nanolumen, Oehlia diaphana, Paraglomus albidum, Rhizoglomus microaggregatum, Rhizophagus aggregatus, R. custos, R. fasciculatus, R. intraradices, R. invermaius, Scutellospora calospora, and Tricispora nevadensis were identified of which six species viz. Diversispora gibbosa, Dominikia aurea, Entrophospora kentinensis, Glomus corymbiforme, Rhizophagus custos, and Tricispora nevadensis were found new for Iran and described here.