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. Our limited knowledge of fungal biology and their interactions with plants in the broader phytobiome context has hampered the development of optimal biotechnological applications in agrosystems and natural ecosystems. Exciting recent technical and knowledge advances in the context of molecular and systems biology open a plethora of opportunities for developing this field of research.

8 páginas, 2 tablas, 3 figurasCananga odorata (Annonaceae), Terminalia catappa and Terminalia mantaly (Combretaceae) are medicinal plants used in Cameroon to treat several diseases. In this study endophytic fungi associated with these plants were isolated and identified, and their enzymatic activities were determined. For this purpose, endophytes isolated from samples of leaves, stems, bark, roots, and flowers of each species were classified according to culture morphology and nucleotide sequences of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions of ribosomal genes. With this technique, the isolates were classified into 21 genera of ascomycetes. The fungal collection was further characterized on the basis of amylase, cellulose, lipase, and laccase enzymatic activity. Isolates positive for all or some of these activitieswere detected. The results indicate that these medicinal plants contain a high diversity of endophytic fungi, and could be a repository of valuable bioactive chemicals. In addition, this study showed that these fungi could be useful for the production of enzymes of industrial importance.The authors are grateful to the National Herbarium of Cameroon for plant identification, and to a Coimbra Scholarship granted by the University of Salamanca to the first author. Part of this work was financed by project AGL2011-22783 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.Peer reviewe

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. rubra plants subjected to drought. Endophyte-infected (E+) and non-infected (E−) plants of two half-sib lines (PEN and RAB) were subjected to three water availability treatments. Shoot and root biomass, nutrient content, proline, phenolic compounds and fungal alkaloids were measured after the treatments. The effect of the endophyte on shoot and root biomass and dead leaves depended on the plant line. In the PEN line, E+ plants had a greater S:R ratio than E-, but the opposite occurred in RAB. In both plant lines and all water treatments, endophyte-infected plants had greater concentrations of N, P and Zn in shoots and Ca, Mg and Zn in roots than E- plants. On average, E+ plants contained in their shoots more P (62%), Zn (58%) and N (19%) than E- plants. While the proline in shoots increased in response to water stress, the endophyte did not affect this response. A multivariate analysis showed that endophyte status and plant line impose stronger differences in the performance of the plants than the water stress treatments. Furthermore, differences between PEN and RAB lines seemed to be greater in E- than in E+ plants, suggesting that E+ plants of both lines are more similar than those of their non-infected version. This is probably due to the endophyte producing a similar effect in both plant lines, such as the increase in N, P and Zn in shoots. The remarkable effect of the endophyte in the nutrient balance of the plants could help to explain the high prevalence of infected plants in natural grasslands.