The Hidden World Within Plants: Ecological and Evolutionary Considerations for Defining Functioning of Microbial Endophytes

Overview

Journal Microbiol Mol Biol Rev

Publisher American Society for Microbiology

Specialty Microbiology

Date 2015 Jul 3

PMID 26136581

Citations 677

Authors

Pablo R Hardoim

Leonard S van Overbeek

Gabriele Berg

Anna Maria Pirttila

Stephane Compant

Andrea Campisano

Matthias Doring

Angela Sessitsch

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

All plants are inhabited internally by diverse microbial communities comprising bacterial, archaeal, fungal, and protistic taxa. These microorganisms showing endophytic lifestyles play crucial roles in plant development, growth, fitness, and diversification. The increasing awareness of and information on endophytes provide insight into the complexity of the plant microbiome. The nature of plant-endophyte interactions ranges from mutualism to pathogenicity. This depends on a set of abiotic and biotic factors, including the genotypes of plants and microbes, environmental conditions, and the dynamic network of interactions within the plant biome. In this review, we address the concept of endophytism, considering the latest insights into evolution, plant ecosystem functioning, and multipartite interactions.

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