Virtually all examined plant species harbour fungal endophytes which asymptomatically infect or colonize living plant tissues, including leaves, branches, stems and roots. Endophyte-host interactions are complex and span the mutualist–pathogen continuum. Notably, mutualist endophytes can confer increased fitness to their host plants compared with uncolonized plants, which has attracted interest in their potential application in integrated plant health management strategies. In this review, we report on the many benefits that fungal endophytes provide to agricultural plants against common non-insect pests such as fungi, bacteria, nematodes, viruses, and mites. We report endophytic modes of action against the aforementioned pests and describe why this broad group of fungi is vitally important to current and future agricultural practices. We also list an extensive number of plant-friendly endophytes and detail where they are most commonly found or applied in different studies. This review acts as a general resource for understanding endophytes as they relate to potential large-scale agricultural applications.

The microbiome, an influential factor affecting plant health and growth, is attracting increasing interest with respect to wine grape production. The purpose of this study was to characterize the microbiome (fungi and bacteria) of the soil, cover crop roots and grape (Vitis spp.) roots across rootstock and depth in a cool climate, organic vineyard. The cover crop consisted of a fescue (Festuca sp.) grass, while grape roots were sampled from ‘New York Muscat,’ a cool climate hybrid, across three root types (ungrafted, ‘3309C’ and ‘Riparia Gloire’) at three root depths (0–15, 15–30 and 30–50 cm). The grape root microbiome was more specialized, with fewer observed amplicon sequence variants (ASVs), for both bacteria (16S) and fungi (ITS) than found in the cover crop and the surrounding soil. Grape roots were dominated by bacterial genera Pseudomonas , Niastella and Rhizobium; most prominent fungal genera were Plectosphaerella, Trichosporon and Ilyonectria. While no correlations were found between alpha diversity metrics and soil parameters, Pseudaleuria RA was correlated with Mn, Fe and Na levels. Soil depth explained a small portion of bacterial, but not fungal, variance and taxonomic composition. Rootstock type explained a portion of both bacterial and fungal variance and taxonomic composition, substantiating the role of host plant genetics in the development of the grape root microbiome. This is the first characterization of the grape root microbiome in a cool climate Canadian vineyard.

We present the first records of fungi associated with feathers from seabirds and sea ducks in the Canadian Arctic and sub-Arctic. Birds sampled in Nunavut and Newfoundland (Canada) included the Common Eider (Somateria mollissima), King Eider (S. spectabilis), Black-legged Kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla), Northern Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis), Glaucous Gull (Larus hyperboreus), Black Guillemot (Cepphus grylle), and Thick-billed Murre (Uria lomvia). In total 19 fungal species were cultured from feathers, identified using ITS rDNA barcoding, and screened for their ability to degrade keratin using a keratin azure assay. Our results indicate that 1) of the 19 isolates, 74% were ascomycetes, while the remaining 26% were basidiomycetes (yeasts); 2) 21% of the ascomycete isolates demonstrated keratinolytic activity (a known pathogenicity factor for fungi that may potentially be harmful to birds); 3) the largest number of fungi were cultured from the sampled Thick-billed Murre; and 4) based on a multiple correspondence analysis, there is some indication that both the King Eider and the Thick-billed Murre collected in the low Arctic had distinct fungal communities that were different from each other and from the other birds sampled. Although our sample sizes were small, initial trends in point (4) do demonstrate that additional study is merited to assess whether the fungal community differences are influenced by variation in the known ecologies of the avian hosts and fungi identified.

Early research on marine fungi was mostly descriptive, with an emphasis on their diversity and taxonomy, especially of those collected at rocky shores on seaweeds and driftwood. Subsequently, further substrata (e.g. salt marsh grasses, marine animals, seagrasses, sea foam, seawater, sediment) and habitats (coral reefs, deep-sea, hydrothermal vents, mangroves, sandy beaches, salt marshes) were explored for marine fungi. In parallel, research areas have broadened from micro-morphology to ultrastructure, ecophysiology, molecular phylogenetics, biogeography, biodeterioration, biodegradation, bioprospecting, genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics. Although marine fungi only constitute a small fraction of the global mycota, new species of marine fungi continue to be described from new hosts/substrata of unexplored locations/habitats, and novel bioactive metabolites have been discovered in the last two decades, warranting a greater collaborative research effort. Marine fungi of Africa, the Americas and Australasia are under-explored, while marine Chytridiomycota and allied taxa, fungi associated with marine animals, the functional roles of fungi in the sea, and the impacts of climate change on marine fungi are some of the topics needing more attention. In this article, currently active marine mycologists from different countries have written on the history and current state of marine fungal research in individual countries highlighting their strength in the subject, and this represents a first step towards a collaborative inter- and transdisciplinary research strategy.

Eastern Mountain Avens (Geum peckii Pursh, Rosaceae) is a globally rare and endangered perennial plant found only at two coastal bogs within Digby County (Nova Scotia, Canada) and at several alpine sites in the White Mountains of New Hampshire (USA). In Canada, the G. peckii population has declined over the past forty years due in part to habitat degradation. We investigated the culturable foliar fungi present in G. peckii leaves at five locations with varying degrees of human impact within this plant species’ Canadian range. Fungal identifications were made using ITS rDNA barcoding of axenic fungal cultures isolated from leaf tissue. Differences in foliar fungal communities among sites were documented, with a predominance of Gnomoniaceae (Class: Sordariomycetes, Phylum: Ascomycota). Habitats with more human impact showed lower endophytic diversities (10–16 species) compared to the pristine habitat (27 species). Intriguingly, several fungi may represent previously unknown taxa. Our work represents a significant step towards understanding G. peckii’s mycobiome and provides relevant data to inform conservation of this rare and endangered plant.