From herbarium to life: Implications of reviving historical fungi for modern plant pathology and agriculture.

ABSTRACT: The Green Revolution (GR) profoundly altered plant-microorganism interactions through widespread agrochemical use and crop breeding. Phytopathogenic fungi present major challenges to agriculture by reducing yield and quality, increasing production costs, and impacting food security and environmental sustainability. Historical biological collections preserving pre-GR diversity are key to understanding how modern intensive agriculture has shaped these interactions. In this study, we revived two Botrytis cinerea strains from the early 1940s and performed phenotypic, genomic, transcriptomic, and metabolomic analyses. Comparisons with modern strains revealed significant differences, including adaptations likely driven by fungicide use and environmental pressures such as host-specific pat

SUBMITTER: Sade D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12273510 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature