Towards establishing a fungal economics spectrum in soil saprobic fungi.

Trait-based frameworks are promising tools to understand the functional consequences of community shifts in response to environmental change. The applicability of these tools to soil microbes is limited by a lack of functional trait data and a focus on categorical traits. To address this gap for an important group of soil microorganisms, we identify trade-offs underlying a fungal economics spectrum based on a large trait collection in 28 saprobic fungal isolates, derived from a common grassland soil and grown in culture plates.

Fungal traits help to understand the decomposition of simple and complex plant litter.

Litter decomposition is a key ecosystem process, relevant for the release and storage of nutrients and carbon in soil. Soil fungi are one of the dominant drivers of organic matter decomposition, but fungal taxa differ substantially in their functional ability to decompose plant litter. Knowledge is mostly based on observational data and subsequent molecular analyses and in vitro studies have been limited to forest ecosystems.

Short term effects of climate change and intensification of management on the abundance of microbes driving nitrogen turnover in montane grassland soils.

Montane grasslands in Europe are exposed to increasing temperatures twice as fast as the global average. Changes in climatic conditions are possibly accompanied by an increase in land use intensity, caused by a prolongation of the vegetation period and the need to improve productivity. Therefore, the investigation of combined effects of climate change and land use intensity is needed to further implement agricultural management strategies.

Microbial stress priming: a meta-analysis.

Microbes have to cope with complex and dynamic environments, making it likely that anticipatory responses provide fitness benefits. Mild, previous stressors can prepare microbes (stress priming) to further and potentially damaging stressors (triggering). We here quantitatively summarize the findings from over 250 trials of 34 studies including bacteria and fungi, demonstrating that priming to stress has a beneficial impact on microbial survival.

Community priming--effects of sequential stressors on microbial assemblages.

Microbes in nature are exposed to complex environmental stressors which challenge their functioning or survival. Priming is the improved reaction of an organism to an environmental stressor following a preceding, often milder stress event. This phenomenon, also known as cross-protection, predictive response strategy or acquired stress resistance, is becoming an increasingly well-established research topic in microbiology, which has so far been examined from the perspective of a single organism or population.

Colonization of roots of cultivated Solanum lycopersicum by dark septate and other ascomycetous endophytes.

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) roots from four different crop sites in Colombia were surface sterilized and 51 fungal isolates were obtained and conserved for further analysis. Based on microscopical observations and growth characteristics, 20 fungal isolates corresponded to genus Fusarium, six presented asexual conidia different from Fusarium, eight were sterile mycelia, seven of which had dark septate hyphae and 17 did not continue to grow on plates after being recovered from conservation.

Effects of dark septate endophytes on tomato plant performance.

Non-mycorrhizal fungal root endophytes can be found in all natural and cultivated ecosystems, but little is known about their impact on plant performance. The impact of three mitosporic dark septate endophytes (DSE48, DSE49 and Leptodontidium orchidicola) on tomato plant characteristics was studied. Their effects on root and shoot growth, their influence on fruit yield and fruit quality parameters and their ability to diminish the impact of the pathogen Verticillium dahliae were investigated.

Impact of Piriformospora indica on tomato growth and on interaction with fungal and viral pathogens.

Piriformospora indica is a root endophytic fungus with plant-promoting properties in numerous plant species and induces resistance against root and shoot pathogens in barley, wheat, and Arabidopsis. A study over several years showed that the endophyte P. indica colonised the roots of the most consumed vegetable crop tomato.