Cortributions of plant microbe interactions to enhance drought resistance against forest fires

Abstract

Forest fires are naturals in the Mediterranean ecosystems. However, in the last decade, the number of wildfires has significantly increased in the Mediterranean basin along with climate change. Therefore, forecasts of this region by using fire indices are crucial to take necessary precautions. In the present study, the projected changes for the period 2070 - 2099 concerning the control period 1971 - 2000 were used to estimate forest fire risk by the Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI) and the greenhouse experiment was conducted to investigate the contribution of plant-microbe interaction against wildfires. RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emission scenario (IPCC) output of MPI-ESM-MR and HadGEM2-ES dynamically downscaled to 50 km for the CORDEX-MENA domain with the use of the RegCM4 were utilized. ERA-Interim observational data from ECMWF covering the period 1980 2012 were also used to test the performances of models. The output of MPI-ESM-MR gave more similar fire risk prediction with the reforecast of observational data (ERA-Interim). Thus, the MPI ESM-MR model could be more suitable to estimate fire risk by FWI. According to future projection, forest fire risk will significantly increase throughout the region for the last 30 years of this century· In the greenhouse experiment, interaction between arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and host plant was evaluated under high temperature and water stress by using soil collected from the Mugla forest area and the mining area in Kiitahya, Pinus nigra (Turkish pine) sapling, Quercus (oak) sapling, and, Glomus mosseae since AMF significantly affect the functioning of forest ecosystems by improving the ability of water and nutrient uptake from soil in their host plants. The consequence of the study shows that AMF enhances plant growth, symbiotic relations, and drought tolerance in the host plants.