Ecological Aspects of Endophyte-Based Biocontrol of Forest Diseases
Recent studies have shown that the asymptomatic fungal endophytes may influence the outcome of forest trees’ interactions with pathogens and herbivores, raising a promise that endophytes might be utilized as biocontrol agents in integrated pest and diseas
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Johanna Witzell, Juan A. Martín, and Kathrin Blumenstein
Abstract
Recent studies have shown that the asymptomatic fungal endophytes may influence the outcome of forest trees’ interactions with pathogens and herbivores, raising a promise that endophytes might be utilized as biocontrol agents in integrated pest and disease management. However, practical applications for forest protection based on endophytes are still rare, in particular in the case of the economically and ecologically important large trees and their diseases. A better understanding of the ecological and biological background of the protection provided by endophytes may help to design new forest protection strategies that utilize endophytes in control of tree diseases. More information is also needed regarding the effects of silvicultural methods on endophyte communities at the level of single trees and forest stands. In this chapter, we discuss the motivation for continued research on endophyte-based biocontrol of forest tree diseases and some ecological aspects related to the topic.
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Introduction
Asymptomatic infections by fungal endophytes have been found to be present in different parts of forest trees, including leaves, bark, wood, seeds, and roots (Carroll 1988, 1995; Petrini 1991; Petrini J. Witzell (*) • K. Blumenstein Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 49, 23053 Alnarp, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] J.A. Martín Departamento de Silvopascicultura, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain
and Fisher 1990; Danti et al. 2002; Ganley and Newcombe 2006; Sieber 2007; Saikkonen 2007). Endophyte communities of forest trees seem to be highly diverse: in several studies, saturating species accumulation curves have not been obtained, and thus only a fraction of the endophyte diversity in forest trees has probably been described so far (Unterseher 2011). Because of their omnipresence and apparently high diversity in trees (Arnold et al. 2000), infections by endophytic fungi have a potential to influence the physiology, metabolism, and ecological interactions of the trees in various ways. However, the functions of tree endophytes are in many cases as poorly known as their diversity and community
V.C. Verma and A.C. Gange (eds.), Advances in Endophytic Research, DOI 10.1007/978-81-322-1575-2_17, © Springer India 2014
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structure. Particularly little is known about the temporal and spatial variations in endophyte communities in large, long-lived forest trees (Jumpponen and Jones 2010). Moreover, the xylem-bound endophyte communities have generally received less attention in research, as compared to the endophyte communities in leaves and bark (Rodriguez et al. 2011). Prompted by the studies that demonstrated how the seed-transmitted fungal endophytes of grasses protect their hosts from herbivory (e.g., Clay 1988, 1996; Clay and Holah 1999), also many tree-endophyte studies have set out to test the hypothesis that endo
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