Soils support an enormous microbial diversity, but the ecological drivers of this diversity are poorly understood. Interactions between the roots of individual grass species and the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and bacteria in their rhizoplane were studied in a grazed, unimproved upland pasture. Individual root fragments were isolated from soil cores, DNA extracted and used to identify pla...

objective: in order to use natural compounds in controlling plant pests and diseases, many researchers in recent years have studied the antifungal effects of essential oils and plant extracts.  the purpose of this study was to investigate the chemical composition and antifungal effects of echium khuzestanium and marubbium anisodan extracts. methods: after extraction and preparation of different...

Understanding the context dependence of ecosystem responses to global changes requires the development of new conceptual frameworks. Here we propose a framework for considering how tree species and their mycorrhizal associates differentially couple carbon (C) and nutrient cycles in temperate forests. Given that tree species predominantly associate with a single type of mycorrhizal fungi (arbusc...

anamorphs of pleosporaceae are important plant pathogenic fungi. despite efforts to clarify phylogenetic relationships of this group there is still uncertainty about taxonomic position of some genera. therefor to elucidate relationships among anamorphic form of some pleosporalean taxa, the internal transcribed spacer (its) and rna polymerase second largest subunit (rpb2) of some members were de...

Most terrestrial plants interact with diverse clades of mycorrhizal and root-endophytic fungi in their roots. Through belowground plant-fungal interactions, dominant plants can benefit by interacting with host-specific mutualistic fungi and proliferate in a community based on positive plant-mutualistic fungal feedback. On the other hand, subordinate plant species may persist in the community by...

Priority effects - the impact of a species' arrival on subsequent community development - have been shown to influence species composition in many organisms. Whether priority effects among arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) structure fungal root communities is not well understood. Here, we investigated whether priority effects influence the success of two closely related AMF species (Rhizophagu...

A study of saprobic fungi occurring on the fynbos of the Western Cape Province of South Africa yielded four unknown Anthostomella species. A. proteae from Protea nitida, A. cynaroides from P. cynaroides, A. leucospermi from Leucospermum oleifolium, and A. brabeji from Brabejum stellatifolium are described as new. New records for South Africa include A. conorum from Leucadendron sp., Protea magn...

Autophagy is a conserved cellular process that degrades cytoplasmic constituents in vacuoles. Plant pathogenic fungi develop special infection structures and/or secrete a range of enzymes to invade their plant hosts. It has been demonstrated that monitoring autophagy processes can be extremely useful in visualizing the sequence of events leading to pathogenicity of plant pathogenic fungi. In th...

Anaerobic fungi inhabit the rumen and actively degrade plant cell walls. Rumen fungi produce high levels of cellulases and hemicellulases and are particularly proficient in producing xylanases. These enzymes are regulated by substrate (especially soluble sugars) available to the organisms. Fungi degrade unlignified (i.e., no histochemical reaction for phenolics) plant walls totally, indicating ...

Most land plants grow in association with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in their roots and these fungi can cause transgenerational effects on plants' offspring. These may be caused by changes in DNA methylation of the offspring. In this study, we compared the amount of global DNA methylation in seeds of the gynodioecious plant Geranium sylvaticum in relation to the gender and the AMF statu...