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The vegetation in the Arabian Peninsula experiences drought, heat, soil salinity, and low fertility, mainly due to low phosphorus (P) availability. The beneficial mycorrhizal symbiosis between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) is a key factor supporting plant growth under such environmental conditions. Therefore, AMF strains isolated from these soils might be useful as biotechnological tools for agriculture and revegetation practices in the region. Here we present a pioneering program to isolate, identify, and apply AMF isolated from rhizosphere soils of agricultural and natural habitats, namely date palm plantations and five native desert plants, respectively in the Southern Arabian Peninsula. We established taxonomically unique AMF species as single-spore cultures as part of an expanding collection of AMF strains adapted to arid ecosystems. Preliminary experiments were conducted to evaluate the abilities of these AMF strains to promote seedling growth of a main crop Phoenix dactylifera L. and a common plant Prosopis cineraria L. (Druce) in the Arabian Peninsula. The results showed that inoculation with certain AMF species enhanced the growth of both plants, highlighting the potential of these fungi as part of sustainable land use practices in this region.

As a result of phylogenomic, phylogenetic, and morphological analyses of members of the genus Claroideoglomus, four potential new glomoid spore-producing species and Entrophospora infrequens, a new order, Entrophosporales, with one family, Entrophosporaceae (=Claroideoglomeraceae), was erected in the phylum Glomeromycota. The phylogenomic analyses recovered the Entrophosporales as sister to a clade formed by Diversisporales and Glomeraceae. The strongly conserved entrophosporoid morph of E. infrequens, provided with a newly designated epitype, was shown to represent a group of cryptic species with the potential to produce different glomoid morphs. Of the four potential new species, three enriched the Entrophosporales as new Entrophospora species, E. argentinensis, E. glacialis, and E. furrazolae, which originated from Argentina, Sweden, Oman, and Poland. The fourth fungus appeared to be a glomoid morph of the E. infrequens epitype. The physical association of the E. infrequens entrophosporoid and glomoid morphs was reported and illustrated here for the first time. The phylogenetic analyses, using nuc rDNA and rpb1 concatenated sequences, confirmed the previous conclusion that the genus Albahypha in the family Entrophosporaceae sensu Oehl et al. is an unsupported taxon. Finally, the descriptions of the Glomerales, Entrophosporaceae, and Entrophospora were emended and new nomenclatural combinations were introduced.

The vegetation in the Arabian Peninsula experiences drought, heat, soil salinity, and low fertility, mainly due to low phosphorus (P) availability. The beneficial mycorrhizal symbiosis between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) is a key factor supporting plant growth under such environmental conditions. Therefore, AMF strains isolated from these soils might be useful as biotechnological tools for agriculture and revegetation practices in the region. Here we present a pioneering program to isolate, identify, and apply AMF isolated from rhizosphere soils of agricultural and natural habitats, namely date palm plantations and five native desert plants, respectively in the Southern Arabian Peninsula. We established taxonomically unique AMF species as single-spore cultures as part of an expanding collection of AMF strains adapted to arid ecosystems. Preliminary experiments were conducted to evaluate the abilities of these AMF strains to promote seedling growth of a main crop Phoenix dactylifera L. and a common plant Prosopis cineraria L. (Druce) in the Arabian Peninsula. The results showed that inoculation with certain AMF species enhanced the growth of both plants, highlighting the potential of these fungi as part of sustainable land use practices in this region.