Salinity is the major environmental factor limiting plant growth and productivity. Under salinity conditions, plant growth is affected by a number of factors such as hormonal and nutritional imbalance, ion toxicity, physiological disorders, susceptibility to diseases, etc. Plant growth under stress conditions may be enhanced by the application of microbial inoculation including plant growth pro...

The antifungal properties of some commercial plant waters obtained as side products in producing distilled oils were investigated. Paper disc samples were impregnated with various plant waters and exposed to wood decay fungi for 3 months in Petri dishes. Ten types of plant water (Laurus nobilis, Calluna vulgaris, Lavandula stoechas, Thymus vulgaris, Myrtus communis, Eucalyptus globulus, Mentha ...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbioses are mutualistic associations between soil fungi and most vascular plants. The symbiosis significantly affects the host physiology in terms of nutrition and stress resistance. Despite the lack of host range specificity of the interaction, functional diversity between AM fungal species exists. The interaction is finely regulated according to plant and fungal ...

Efficacy of seven fungicides and seven plant extracts were evaluated against two pathogenic species of fungi isolated from Senna alata L. in vitro. The isolated fungi were Colletotrichum gloeosporioides (Penz.) Sacc. and Pestalotiopsis guepinii (Desm.) Stay. Seven fungicides Acrobate MZ, Bavistin 50 WP, Indofil M-45, MC Sulphur 80 WP, Ridomil MZ Gold, Sulcox 50 WP and Tall 25 EC at 100, 200, 30...

The production of hydrolytic enzymes from external mycelia associated with roots and colonized soybean roots (Glycine max L.) inoculated with different arbuscular-mycorrhizal (AM) fungi of the genus GLOMUS:, and the possible relationship between these activities and the capacity of the AM fungi to colonize plant roots was studied. There were differences in root colonization and plant growth bet...

Anaerobic gut fungi are the primary colonizers of plant material in the rumen microbiome, but are poorly studied due to a lack of characterized isolates. While most genera of gut fungi form extensive rhizoidal networks, which likely participate in mechanical disruption of plant cell walls, fungi within the Caecomyces genus do not possess these rhizoids. Here, we describe a novel fungal isolate,...

Symbioses between plants and fungi, fungi and ants, and ants and plants all play important roles in ecosystems. Symbioses involving all three partners appear to be rare. Here, we describe a novel tripartite symbiosis in which ants and a fungus inhabit domatia of an ant-plant, and present evidence that such interactions are widespread. We investigated 139 individuals of the African ant-plant Leo...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are obligate biotrophs that acquire carbon (C) solely from host plants. AM fungi can proliferate hyphae in, and acquire nitrogen (N) from, organic matter. Although they can transfer some of that N to plants, we tested the hypothesis that organic matter is an important N source for the AM fungi themselves. We grew pairs of plants with and without the AM fungus G...

BACKGROUND Fungal endophytes inhabit symptomless, living tissues of all major plant lineages to form one of earth's most prevalent groups of symbionts. Many reproduce from senesced and/or decomposing leaves and can produce extracellular leaf-degrading enzymes, blurring the line between symbiotrophy and saprotrophy. To better understand the endophyte-saprotroph continuum we compared fungal commu...

The surfaces of aerial plant parts provide a habitat for epiphytic micro-organisms, many of which also influence the growth of pathogens. Bacteria are generally the predominant initial inhabitants of newly expanded leaves, while yeasts and filamentous fungi dominate later in the growing season (Kinkel et al., 1987). A large body of information has been accumulated regarding antagonism between b...