Foliar microbiome transplants confer disease resistance in a critically-endangered plant.

ABSTRACT: There has been very little effort to incorporate foliar microbiomes into plant conservation efforts even though foliar endophytes are critically important to the fitness and function of hosts. Many critically endangered plants that have been extirpated from the wild are dependent on regular fungicidal applications in greenhouses that cannot be maintained for remote out-planted populations, which quickly perish. These fungicides negatively impact potentially beneficial fungal symbionts, which may reduce plant defenses to pathogens once fungicide treatments are stopped. Using the host/parasite system of Phyllostegia kaalaensis and Neoerysiphe galeopsidis, we conducted experiments to test total foliar microbiome transplants from healthy wild relatives onto fungicide-dependent en

SUBMITTER: Zahn G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5683046 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature