Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi contribute to resistance of upland rice to combined metal contamination of soil

A greenhouse pot experiment was conducted to investigate heavy metal [copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), lead (Pb), and cadmium (Cd)] uptake by two upland rice cultivars, '91B3 and '277, grown in a sterilized field soil contaminated by a mixture of Cu, Zn, Pb, and Cd. Rice plants were inoculated with each of three arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), Glomus versiforme (GV), Glomus mosseae (GM), and Glomus diaphanum (GD), or remained noninoculated (NM). Both rice cultivars could be colonized by the three AMF used in this experiment. The percentage of mycorrhizal colonization by the three AMFs on the two rice cultivars ranged from 30% to 70%. Mycorrhizal colonization of both upland rice cultivars had a large influence on plant growth by increasing the shoot and root biomass compared with non-inoculated (NM) plants. The results indicate that mycorrhiza exert some protective effects against the combined toxicity of Cu, Zn, Pb, and Cd in the contaminated soil. This conclusion is supported by the partitioning of heavy metals (HMs) in the two cultivars. In the two cultivars, colonization by AMF reduced the translocation of HMs from root to shoot (except that the colonization of AMF increased the Cu translocation of HMs in cultivar '277). Immobilization of the HMs in roots can alleviate the potential toxicity to shoots induced by the mixture of Cu, Zn, Pb, and Cd. The two rice cultivars showed significant differences in uptake of Cu, Zn, Pb, and Cd when uninoculated. GM inoculation gave the most protective effects on the two cultivars under the combined soil contamination.