Abstract :
It is well known that the over exploitation of soil resources decreases the density and diversity of arbuscu-lar mycorrhizal (AM) fungal propagules. It has been postulated that agricultural practices could promotethe occurrence and functioning of remaining and resilient AM fungal ecotypes in order to benefit from AMassociations. Using C. ochroleuca, a highly mycotrophic plant species, the aims of this study were to deter-mine in controlled conditions, the impact of this legume species on: (i) the mycorrhizal soil infectivity(MSI), (ii) the Rock Phosphate (RP) solubilising activity and (iii) the soil microbial functions. The expectedbenefits of C. ochroleuca cultivation have been evaluated by comparing its biological influences with thoserecorded with a non-mycorrhizal plant species, Brassica oleracea in order to attest of the importance of theAM potential in RP weathering and soil functioning. The results show that: C. ochroleuca was effective inimproving the mycorrhizal soil potential, (ii) functional abilities of soil microflora were influenced by thecultured plant species and the mycorrhizal soil potential and (iii) the efficiency of rock phosphate amend-ment on plant growth depended on the level of mycorrhizal soil potential and was linkedto the extentof the mycorrhizal network.The C. ochroleuca impact was significantly reinforced with KRP amendment(i.e. +29.3% for the Catabolic Eveness, +45.7% for the hyphal length). According to these results, it couldbe concluded that agricultural strategies based on the management of local biodiversity (i.e. the use ofnative legume species) could be considered as a sustainable practice to optimally manage AM fungi andto ensure their functionalities in order to maintain a sustainable production of food crops in the tropics