**1. Introduction**

In their natural environment, plants are part of a rich ecosystem, including numerous and diverse microorganisms in the soil and the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), which represent the main component of the soil microbiota in most agroecosystems. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are obligate biotrophs and rely on their autotrophic host to complete their life cycle and produce the next generation of spores [1]. These symbionts colonize the roots of the vast majority of plants, either the roots of 86% of terrestrial plants [2] and most crop plants [3]. By forming an extended, intricate hyphal network, AMF can efficiently absorb mineral nutrients from the soil and deliver them to their host plants in exchange for carbohydrates. They play an important role in soil fertility, the acquisition of mineral nutrients, especially immobile nutrients, such as phosphorus [4, 5]. AMF can also enhance tolerance or resistance to root pathogens [6] or abiotic stresses, such as metal toxicity [7]. Yet another benefit conferred by the mycorrhizal fungi is plant growth increase under water deficit conditions. It does so by aiding drought avoidance, enhancing mineral nutrition, improvement in soil physicochemical and biological properties [8].

AMF protects the plant health against other environmental stresses [9, 10] and improves the soil structure by the formation of stable soil aggregates, building up a macroporous structure of soil that allows penetration of water and air and prevents erosion, which results in promoting root system development [11].

Due to all of these advantageous attributes of AMF related to the extended absorptive root surface and the available soil volume by hyphae mycelium of mycorrhizal fungi, some ecological scientists have advocated their use in the regeneration of tropical forests and the restoration of degraded soil in arid and semi-arid areas. In Morocco, there are many representative areas where potential resources are affected by the grazing pressure, arid climate, and anthropogenic activities, such as the northwest palm grove [12, 13], Thuya [14], and argan forest [15]. Of these latter, the argan-ecosystem, suffers from an increase in the deterioration of its various components and needs rehabilitation and reforestation programs to restore a sustainable natural environment.

The use of AMF is one of the natural processes that gains an increasing interest. Its success depends on the knowledge of the diversity and richness of AMF as probable indicators of adaptation in certain environments and the setting of symbiosis with plants [16]. In this context, the study of the diversity of AMF in argan tree rhizosphere through the isolation, identification, and quantification of the number of spores constitute the key step to the characterization of the native AMF associated with this plant species before using as inoculants with a better chance of adapting to particular soil, climate conditions [17].

Several works have shown that the argan tree benefits from a symbiotic association established between the roots of the plant with mycorrhizal fungi [18–21]. Indeed, in semi-arid and arid seeded areas, soils are deficient in nutrients and subject to long periods of drought, hence the need for such root symbiosis [22]. Describing the diversity of the community of AMF at numerous sites from the same area can be useful tool awarding eventual changes that can occur in the course of years before undertaking preservation strategies of this endemic tree, such as incorporating AMF-based biotechnology to cope with stressful conditions that threaten both the perennity and production of this agroforestry system.

*Diversity of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi in the Rhizosphere of* Argania spinosa *in Morocco DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106162*
