Symbiotic fungi from a wild grass () increase the growth, grain yield and quality of tritordeum under field conditions.

Plants function in symbiosis with numerous microorganisms, which might contribute to their adaptation and performance. In this study, we tested whether fungal strains in symbiotic interaction with roots of , a wild grass adapted to nutrient-poor soils in semiarid habitats, could improve the field performance of the agricultural cereal tritordeum ( × ). Seedlings of tritordeum were inoculated with 12 different fungal strains isolated from roots of that were first proved to promote the growth of tritordeum plants under greenhouse conditions.

species associated with the maritime grass subsp. .

subsp. is a perennial grass growing in sea cliffs where plants are highly exposed to salinity and marine winds, and often grow in rock fissures where soil is absent. species are one of the most abundant components of the root microbiome of this grass and several isolates have been found to produce beneficial effects in their host and other plant species of agronomic importance.

enhances tomato drought tolerance by improving photosynthesis, nutrient uptake and enzymatic antioxidant response.

Functional symbiosis with fungal endophytes can help plants adapt to environmental stress. is one of the most abundant fungal taxa associated with roots of subsp. , a grass growing in sea cliffs.

A Fungal Endophyte From a Wild Grass Improves Growth and Salinity Tolerance of Tritordeum and Perennial Ryegrass.

Some microbiome components can provide functions that extend the capabilities of plants, increasing the environmental adaptability and performance of holobionts. subsp. is a perennial grass adapted to rocky sea cliffs, where soil and nutrients are very limited, and exposure to salinity is continuous.

Endophyte-Promoted Seed Pathogen Increases Host Grass Resistance Against Insect Herbivory.

Plants host taxonomically and functionally complex communities of microbes. However, ecological studies on plant-microbe interactions rarely address the role of multiple co-occurring plant-associated microbes. Here, we contend that plant-associated microbes interact with each other and can have joint consequences for higher trophic levels.

Genetic Diversity of the Symbiotic Fungus in Naturally Occurring Host Grass Populations.

festucae is a common symbiont of the perennial and widely distributed cool season grass, . The symbiosis is highly integrated involving systemic growth of the fungus throughout above-ground host parts and vertical transmission from plant to its offspring host seeds. However, the nature of symbiosis is labile ranging from antagonistic to mutualistic depending on prevailing selection pressures.

The Role of Fungal Microbiome Components on the Adaptation to Salinity of subsp. .

subsp. is a perennial grass that inhabits sea cliffs, a habitat where salinity and low nutrient availability occur. These plants have a rich fungal microbiome, and particularly common are their associations with in aboveground tissues and with and in roots.

Disruption of Traditional Grazing and Fire Regimes Shape the Fungal Endophyte Assemblages of the Tall-Grass .

The plant microbiome is likely to play a key role in the resilience of communities to the global climate change. This research analyses the culturable fungal mycobiota of across a sharp gradient of disturbance caused by an intense, anthropogenic fire regime. This factor has dramatic consequences for the community composition and diversity of high-altitude grasslands in the Pyrenees.

Untapping the potential of plant mycobiomes for applications in agriculture.

Plant-fungal interactions are widespread in nature, and their multiple benefits for plant growth and health have been amply demonstrated. Endophytic and epiphytic fungi can significantly increase plant resilience, improving plant nutrition, stress tolerance and defence. Although some of these interactions have been known for decades, the relevance of the plant mycobiome within the plant microbiome has been largely underestimated.

Screening fungal endophytes from a wild grass for growth promotion in tritordeum, an agricultural cereal.

Celtica gigantea(= Stipa gigantea) is a large perennial grass which grows in nutrient-poor sandy soils in semiarid zones of the western Iberian Peninsula. The purpose of this work was to find out if culturable fungal symbionts isolated from roots of this wild grass could have growth promoting activity in tritordeum, a hybrid cereal for human consumption. A survey of fungi from the root endosphere of C.

Brassica oleracea var. acephala (kale) improvement by biological activity of root endophytic fungi.

Brassica oleracea var. acephala (kale) is a cruciferous vegetable widely cultivated for its leaves and flower buds in Atlantic Europe and the Mediterranean area, being a food of great interest as a "superfood" today. Little has been studied about the diversity of endophytic fungi in the Brassica genus, and there are no studies regarding kale.

Cultivation and growth dynamics of endophytic fungi in a solid culture medium based on sugar beet pulp.

Background: The production of mycelium from endophytic fungi is of interest for applications ranging from inoculants and biofertilizers for crop production to fermentations for enzyme and metabolite production. The purpose of this study was to test the capacity of a solid growth medium based on beet pulp for growing different strains of endophytes.

Results: The ergosterol content of inoculated medium was measured to estimate fungal growth.

Local adaptation in natural European host grass populations with asymmetric symbiosis.

Recent work on microbiomes is revealing the wealth and importance of plant-microbe interactions. Microbial symbionts are proposed to have profound effects on fitness of their host plants and vice versa, especially when their fitness is tightly linked. Here we studied local adaptation of host plants and possible fitness contribution of such symbiosis in the context of abiotic environmental factors.

A Survey of Culturable Fungal Endophytes From subsp. , a Grass From Marine Cliffs, Reveals a Core Microbiome.

subsp. is a perennial grass that inhabits sea cliffs of the Atlantic coasts of Europe. In this unhospitable environment plants grow in rock crevices and are exposed to abiotic stress factors such as low nutrient availability, wind, and salinity.

Conditioned media and organic elicitors underpin the production of potent antiplasmodial metabolites by endophytic fungi from Cameroonian medicinal plants.

Plasmodial resistance to artemisinin-based combination therapies emphasizes the need for new drug development to control malaria. This paper describes the antiplasmodial activity of metabolites produced by endophytic fungi of three Cameroonian plants. Ethyl acetate extracts of fungi cultivated on three different media were tested against Plasmodium falciparum chloroquine-sensitive (Pf3D7) and chloroquine-resistant (PfINDO) strains using the SYBR green florescence assay.

Near-infrared spectroscopy allows detection and species identification of Epichloë endophytes in Lolium perenne.

Background: Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) is systemically infected by seed-transmitted fungal endophytes (Epichloë sp.). The presence of Epichloë endophytes alters the nutritive quality of its hosts by modifying several plant traits.

Production of fumonisins by endophytic strains of Tolypocladium cylindrosporum and its relation to fungal virus infection.

Fumonisins were first discovered in Fusarium verticillioides, a fungus associated to disease and asymptomatic infections in maize. Afterwards, other fungal taxa have been found to produce fumonisins. The entomopathogenic ascomycete Tolypocladium cylindrosporum has been isolated from soil and also as an endophyte from leaves of grasses.

Qualitative and quantitative analysis of endophyte alkaloids in perennial ryegrass using near-infrared spectroscopy.

Background: Near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) has been widely used in forage quality control because it is faster, cleaner and less expensive than conventional chemical procedures. In Lolium perenne (perennial ryegrass), one of the most important forage grasses, the infection by asymptomatic Epichloë fungal endophytes alters the plant nutritional quality due to the production of alkaloids. In this research, we developed a rapid method based on NIRS to detect and quantify endophyte alkaloids (peramine, lolitrem B and ergovaline) using a heterogeneous set of L.

Solutions to decrease a systematic error related to AAPH addition in the fluorescence-based ORAC assay.

Oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) assay in 96-well multi-detection plate readers is a rapid method to determine total antioxidant capacity (TAC) in biological samples. A disadvantage of this method is that the antioxidant inhibition reaction does not start in all of the 96 wells at the same time due to technical limitations when dispensing the free radical-generating azo initiator 2,2'-azobis (2-methyl-propanimidamide) dihydrochloride (AAPH). The time delay between wells yields a systematic error that causes statistically significant differences in TAC determination of antioxidant solutions depending on their plate position.

Data on litter quality of host grass plants with and without fungal endophytes.

Certain Pooideae species form persistent symbiosis with fungal endophytes of Epichloë genus. Although endophytes are known to impact the ecology and evolution of host species, their effects on parameters related with quality of plant biomass has been elusive. This article provides information about parameters related with the quality of plant litter biomass of two important grass species (Schedonorus phoenix and Schedonorus pratensis) affected by the symbiosis with fungal endophytes (Epichloë coenophiala and Epichloë uncinata, respectively).

Fungal endophyte (Epichloë festucae) alters the nutrient content of Festuca rubra regardless of water availability.

Festuca rubra plants maintain associations with the vertically transmitted fungal endophyte Epichloë festucae. A high prevalence of infected host plants in semiarid grasslands suggests that this association could be mutualistic. We investigated if the Epichloë-endophyte affects the growth and nutrient content of F.

Prevalence and diversity of viruses in the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana.

Viruses have been discovered in numerous fungal species, but unlike most known animal or plant viruses, they are rarely associated with deleterious effects on their hosts. The knowledge about viruses among entomopathogenic fungi is very limited, although their existence is suspected because of the presence of virus-like double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) in isolates of several species. Beauveria bassiana is one of the most-studied species of entomopathogenic fungi; it has a cosmopolitan distribution and is used as a biological control agent against invertebrates in agriculture.

Mycoviruses infecting the endophytic and entomopathogenic fungus Tolypocladium cylindrosporum.

A mixed virus infection in a strain of the endophytic and entomopathogenic fungus Tolypocladium cylindrosporum was deduced from a study of the transmission to conidia of several double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) elements. The transmission rates of each dsRNA were different, and monosporic isolates harbouring different combinations of the original set of six dsRNAs were obtained. A 5196 bp dsRNA element was sequenced and represents the genome of T.

A spectroscopy approach to the study of virus infection in the endophytic fungus Epichloë festucae.

Background: In this work we propose a rapid method based on visible and near-infrared (Vis-NIR) spectroscopy to determine the occurrence of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) viruses in Epichloë festucae strains isolated from Festuca rubra plants. In addition, we examined the incidence of infections by E. festucae in populations of F.

Mycoviruses are common among different species of endophytic fungi of grasses.

A survey of mycoviruses was made in a collection of 103 isolates belonging to 53 different species of endophytic fungi of grasses. Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) elements were detected in isolates of 12 of the species analyzed. The banding characteristics and sizes of some of the dsRNA elements suggest that they might belong to previously described mycovirus families.