The Future Prospects of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi in Slope Ecological Restoration

The rapid development of transportation and urbanization has promoted the continuous innovation of slope ecological restoration technology (SERT). More environmentally friendly and efficient technologies are being developed and perfected to make the restored slopes sustainable and be able to integrate into the natural environment, in which microbial-plant remediation technology was been taken into account. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), a microbial material commonly used in ecological restoration, has a symbiotic relationship with the majority of terrestrial plants to provide water and nutrients, and has been successfully used in the field of ecological restoration in recent years. Combining stress tolerance and growth promotion for plants with improvement of soils properties through strengthened associations with AMF would help to increase the efficiency of slope ecological restoration. This review mainly introduces AMF research progress in terms of plant stress tolerance, ecological optimization, and symbiosis with plant species for phytoremediation, summarizes the current challenges faced in the application of AMF in ecological restoration projects, and highlights the future research direction for resolving the mentioned problems. Finally, theoretical study and field applications are combined to provide an overview of the future application prospects in slope ecological restoration.