By Theo Newbold, 2023-2026 FFAR Fellow
at Pennsylvania State University
Inside the leaves, stems, fruits, flowers and roots of most land plants are communities of bacteria, fungi and other microorganisms that form plants’ microbiomes. Just like your gut microbiome, the collection of microbes that live in your intestines, plants have microbial communities that live in and around their tissues. These microbes communicate with the plant and one another, drive plant health outcomes and shape how the plant interacts with its environment.
As a FFAR Fellow and microbiome science and plant pathology PhD student at the Pennsylvania State University, I study microbes called “fungal endophytes” in corn leaves. Endophytes get their name because they live inside (“endo”) the plant (“phyte”). Endophytes can both benefit and harm the plant. They provide “beneficials”, with the potential to support plant health against disease and environmental stress, and “commensals” with unknown relationships, good or bad, to their plant host. Still, and even more importantly to me as a plant pathologist, these fungi can be parasites with the ability to cause disease and produce dangerous toxins that put human and livestock health at risk if ingested.
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