The two major mechanisms of plant defense against pathogens are resistance (the host's ability to limit pathogen multiplication) and tolerance (the host's ability to reduce the effect of infection on its fitness regardless of the level of pathogen multiplication). There is abundant literature on virtually every aspect of plant resistance to pathogens. Although tolerance to plant pathogens is co...

Bacteria and fungi that colonise plant surfaces and internal plant tissues (epiphytes and endophytes respectively) are ubiquitous, residing latently or actively colonising the plant locally as well as systemically. Endophytic microorganisms generally originate from the epiphytic communities of the root or aerial surfaces as well as from within seed material. Besides entering plants through natu...

Vascular wilts are among the most destructive plant diseases that occur in annual crops as well as in woody perennials. These diseases are generally caused by soil-borne bacteria, fungi, and oomycetes that infect through the roots and enter the water-conducting xylem vessels where they proliferate and obstruct the transportation of water and minerals. As a consequence, leaves wilt and die, whic...

Bacterial pathogens colonize a host plant by growing between the cells by utilizing the nutrients present in apoplastic space. While successful pathogens manipulate the plant cell membrane to retrieve more nutrients from the cell, the counteracting plant defense mechanism against nonhost pathogens to restrict the nutrient efflux into the apoplast is not clear. To identify the genes involved in ...

1. During the last centuries many alien species have established and spread in new regions, where some of them cause large ecological and economic problems. As one of the main explanations of the spread of alien species, the enemy-release hypothesis is widely accepted and frequently serves as justification for biological control. 2. We used a global fungus–plant host distribution data set for 1...

Hundreds of different microorganisms are attached to the surface of roots. Therefore, it is not surprising that plants have the ability to distinguish threatening intruders from beneficial microbiota (Tóth and Stacey, 2015). Pathogens can be discriminated by plant cells through amyriad of plasma membrane and intracellular receptors that recognize molecules released by microbes, in a process cal...