Symbioses with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) may increase plant tolerance to heavy metals, in addition to the improvement in phosphorus (P) uptake by plants.
At the same time, organic matter inputs in compost or vermicompost, produced in the presence of earthworms, are valuable soil amendments that may increase plant growth.
Greater residual soil water under cowpea at harvest may increase plant available water the following year provided that the soil has a high soil water storage capacity and slow drainage rates.
Thus, they may increase plant growth and/or reduce susceptibility to diseases caused by various pathogenic agents [6].
Elevated atmospheric CO2 may increase plant production, but this response could be constrained by reductions in precipitation and soil moisture [20].
The transformation of natural habitats into monocultures may increase plant productivity, but may at the same time result in losses of important ecosystem services, such as the control of insect pest populations [3] [4].
Seed dispersal mutualisms with animals provide plants with a reliable dispersing agent, which may increase plant fitness and population growth rate, and may thus reduce extinction rates [11], [12].
Plant ACS activity can also be increased by bacterial IAA production, showing that both pathways are related, and may increase plant and bacterial fitness during Methylobacterium-plant interactions.
Consequently, we suggest that under dehydration these pathogen-interaction proteins may increase plant defense abilities in addition to enhancing drought tolerance.
Here we show that the plasticity of fine root growth may increase plant productivity based on an experiment using young seedlings (14-week old) of loblolly pine.
