The arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi as soil quality indicator. Application to trace elements contaminated soil

Contribution à la domestication de l'arganier pour la production de l'huile

A survey conducted in 5 sites in the argan tree forest showed that argan oil represents an important part of the users' incomes. Nut-breaking is the most time-consuming and tedious step for the women involved in oil production. In 3 sites, the women were capable of distinguishing between those trees that yield nuts easy to break and trees yielding nuts difficult to break. These trees were named F and D, respectively. In each site, fruits were harvested from trees identified as F or D by the users, or at random. Those fruits were characterized by a set of measurements, including the force needed to break the nuts. Our measurements pointed out that the nuts harvested from F trees require a lo…

Long-term effects of crop management on Rhizobium leguminosarum biovar viciae populations.

Little is known about factors that affect the indigenous populations of rhizobia in soils. We compared the abundance, diversity and genetic structure of Rhizobium leguminosarum biovar viciae populations in soils under different crop managements, i.e., wheat and maize monocultures, crop rotation, and permanent grassland. Rhizobial populations were sampled from nodules of pea- or vetch plants grown in soils collected at three geographically distant sites in France, each site comprising a plot under long-term maize monoculture. Molecular characterization of isolates was performed by PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism of 16S-23S rDNA intergenic spacer as a neutral marker of the genomi…