Aspergillus terreus Alleviates Salinity-Induced Phytotoxicity and Improves Growth, Photosynthetic Pigment and Osmolyte Status in Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32350/bsr.84.01Keywords:
Aspergillus terreus, Hordeum vulgare, osmolytes, rhizospheric fungi, salt toleranceAbstract
Background. Soil salinization remains one of the most persistent abiotic constraints on cereal productivity, worldwide. Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), although ranked among the more salt-tolerant cereals, still incurs measurable physiological and biochemical penalties. Beneficial rhizospheric fungi have been proposed as a low-cost route to buffer this stress, yet the degree of protection they confer is isolate, host-specific, and needs to be demonstrated experimentally, rather than assumed. The present study investigated the novel use of a rhizospheric Aspergillus terreus isolate, originally obtained from the rhizosphere of Parthenium hysterophorus to enhance salinity tolerance in barley seedlings.
Methods. The study evaluated the capacity of a rhizospheric fungal isolate, identified as Aspergillus terreus and obtained from the Plant-Microbe-Interaction (PMI) Laboratory, Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan to protect barley seedlings against 150 mM salinity in a pot trial. The trial was arranged as a completely randomized design with four treatments: untreated control, fungal inoculation alone, salinity alone, and salinity combined with fungal inoculation.
Results. Salinity sharply suppressed seedling emergence and vegetative growth, reducing shoot length by 14.3%, root length by 42.5%, fresh biomass by 28.1%, and dry biomass by 64.5% relative to the control, while chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, carotenoid, and xanthophyll contents fell by 29.0%, 49.6%, 21.0% and 5.1%, respectively. Salt-stressed plants accumulated more total phenolics, flavonoids, and proline, while total lipid content declined and gained soluble sugars by approximately 46%, consistent with an osmotic and ionic stress response. Inoculation with A. terreus partially alleviated this damage: seedling emergence and shoot length recovered by approximately 11-25%, root length and dry biomass by 30-109%, and photosynthetic pigments by 2-32%. While, proline and phenolics declined toward the salt-only baseline by 9-17%, though remaining significantly different from the control (p ≤ 0.05). Further, total lipid content increased by approximately 43% and soluble sugars declined by approximately 14% relative to the salt-only treatments, both moving back toward control levels. Light microscopy confirmed the colonization of barley roots by the fungus.
Conclusions. These findings suggest that the Parthenium hysterophorus rhizosphere-derived A. terreus isolate is associated with reduced proline, phenolic and lipid accumulation, and increased soluble sugar and pigment content in salt-stressed barley. Further, they support A. terreus as a candidate inoculant for barley grown under saline conditions, pending validation in non-sterile soil under greenhouse and field conditions.
Highlights.
· A. terreus significantly reduces salinity-induced growth inhibition in barley.
· Fungal inoculation is associated with increased photosynthetic pigments and soluble sugar content.
· The isolate is an experimental candidate for salt-affected agricultural soils, pending strain-level biosafety testing, and validation in non-sterile field soil.
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