Historic

Brief history of mycorrhizae research in Brazil

Over the past 55 years, studies of mycorrhizal associations by Brazilian researchers have become a consolidated line of research in the country. Reports of this association in Brazilian territory date back to the early years of the 20th century in Pinus plantations and later, between 1950 and 1970, there were reports for Araucaria and Amazonian tree species (Siqueira et al. 2010).

The first academic work on mycorrhizae in Brazil was produced in the early 1970s by Dr. Lilian Isolde Thomazini at UNESP in Rio Claro, in the state of São Paulo. This work resulted in a publication in Plant and Soil (Thomazini LI - 1974 - Mycorrhiza in plants of the “Cerrado.” Plant and Soil 41:707-711). It was recorded in this work that 56 tree species had arbuscular mycorrhizal association (reported at the time as endotrophic mycorrhizae), 02 species (Campomanesia coeruelea and Bauhinia holophylla) were associated with ectomycorrhizae and two species had ectendomycorrhizae. In the same decade, Tasso Leo Krügner obtained in 1976 his Ph.D. in Phytopathology at North Carolina State University, USA, whose thesis title was “Development of ectomycorrhizae, growth, nutrient status, and outplanting performance of loblolly pine seedlings grown in soil infested with Pisolithus tinctorius and Telephora terrestris under different fertilization regimes”. His return to Brazil boosted the work with the ectomycorrhizal association at ESALQ, in Piracicaba, São Paulo.

At the end of the 1970s, more precisely in 1978, a workshop on endomycorrhizae was organized at the Instituto Agronômico de Campinas (IAC), which for many represents the starting point for research on mycorrhizae in Brazil. This course was conceived by Dr. Lourival do Carmo Mônaco, at that time the director of the IAC, who asked Dr. Eli Sidney Lopes to organize it. The course was taught by Dr. Barbara Mosse and Dr. David Hayman, two exponents of mycorrhizal research from the Rothamsted Experimental Station, England. This course laid the foundations for mycorrhiza research to be pursued in the participants' home institutions, namely the IAC, the Lavras College of Agriculture (now UFLA), the Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture (ESALQ), University Federal of Rio Grande do Sul, Embrapa and Institute of Botany of São Paulo (Siqueira et al. 2010). Some participants in this course boosted mycorrhizae research in Brazil in their home institutions (Siqueira and Klauberg-Filho, 2000) and some are still working on research with mycorrhizae.

The result of this workshop was a heightened interest in mycorrhizal research, which resulted in publications addressing the potential of these fungi and symbiosis in tropical plants (Siqueira et al., 2010). The Brazilian Journal of Soil Science became the main journal for publication of results with mycorrhizae research at the national level and one of the first reviews published in this journal was authored by Eli Lopes, Oswaldo Siqueira and Laércio Zambolin in 1983. Enthusiasm with the research results was such that meetings were organized just to discuss results from research on mycorrhizae, the good old Brazilian Meetings on Mycorrhizae, the REBRAMs (for more details, see the REBRAM page).

The 1990s were marked by the expansion and consolidation of the mycorrhiza as a field of research, evidenced by an increase on the number of publications by Brazilian authors in foreign scientific journals (Siqueira et al., 2010) and by the formation of a large number of doctors who continued their research in mycorrhizae in the Institutions up today. In this decade we can highlight the book edited by José Oswaldo Siqueira after a meeting of researchers in Lavras, MG, entitled “Advances in fundamentals and applications of mycorrhizae” and the review by Mendonça and Oliveira (1996) critically evaluating mycorrhiza research in Brazil (Siqueira et al., 2010).

Currently, Brazil have more than 20 research groups and ca. 400 researchers dedicated to mycorrhizae research, although a more detailed analysis shows that only 20% of these researchers are specialists in the field (Siqueira et al., 2010). The same authors point out that the following institutions are the ones that contributed the most to training in the area of ​​mycorrhizae:

- Universidade Federal de Lavras – UFLA – Lavras, MG

- Escola Superior de Agricultura Luis de Queiroz – ESALQ – Piracicaba, SP

- Universidade Federal de Viçosa – UFV – Viçosa, MG

- Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro – UFRRJ – Seropédica, RJ

- Embrapa Agrobiologia – Seropédica, RJ

- Universidade Estadual de São Paulo – UNESP – Rio Claro, SP

- Universidade Federal de Pernambuco – UFPE – Recife, PE

As five decades of research with mycorrhizae in Brazil are completed, counting the IAC workshop in 1978 as the starting point, we highlight two moments that crown the results obtained and the efforts of researchers in this fascinating area.

The first was the organization of the 6th ICOM – International Conference on Mycorrhizae – in Belo Horizonte, MG between August 9th and 14th, 2009, with the theme “Beyond the roots”. ICOM6 was organized by the group of researchers from the Federal University of Viçosa, and presided by Maria Catarina Megumi Kasuya, who had the support of several Brazilian researchers as members of the local scientific committee.

The second was in 2010 with the launching of the book “Mycorrhizas: 30 years of research in Brazil”, edited by José Oswaldo Siqueira, Francisco Adriano de Souza, Elke Jurandy Bran Nogueira Cardoso and Siu Mui Tsai. This book, organized into 22 chapters, had the collaboration of 51 Brazilian authors and has 2,500 references. The book rescued and critically evaluated the research carried out in Brazil over the last 30 years on mycorrhizae.

Siqueira & Klauberg-Filho (2000) highlighted that despite the potential application of mycorrhiza research in Brazil and the existence of well-qualified researchers, the country lacks nationally coordinated research programs, that the contingent of mycorrhizae researchers is insufficient and that high-level research programs are rare, resulting in a “not very optimistic picture”. The authors also proposed guidelines and an agenda for research in Brazil that should be followed. Above all, the establishment of research programs with an integrated and continuous approach (Siqueira & Klauberg Filho, 2000), as well as the development of collaborative networks must be sought to keep up the consolidation of mycorrhizae research in Brazil.

References:

Informations above were extracted from the following references:

Siqueira, J.O. & Klauberg-Filho, O. 2000. Micorrizas Arbusculares: a pesquisa brasileira em perspectiva. Tópicos em Ciência do Solo – Volume I. Sociedade Brasileira de Ciência do Solo, Viçosa, MG. PP. 235-264.

Siqueira, J.O., F.A. de Souza, E.J.B.N. Cardoso & S.M Tsai. 2010. Histórico e evolução da micorrizologia no Brasil: avanços em três décadas. In.: Micorrizas: 30 anos de pesquisa no Brasil. Eds.: J.O. Siqueira, ., F.A. de Souza, E.J.B.N. Cardoso & S.M Tsai. Editora UFLA, Lavras, MG. Pp 1-14.