Influence of Moisture Content, Temperature, and Length of Storage on Seed Germination and Survival of Endophytic Fungi in Seeds of Tall Fescue and Perennial Ryegrass

Welty, R. E.; Azevedo, Mark D.; Cooper, T. M.

doi:10.1094/phyto-77-893

Cited by 94 publications

(76 citation statements)

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“…Selection of native species with beneficial endophytes (such as P. alsodes) could help to achieve this goal. These considerations also highlight the need for proper seed storage for restoration material; seed storage under hot, humid conditions (and even at room temperature) can reduce endophyte viability (Siegel et al 1984;Welty et al 1987) and potentially limit restoration success.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential for endophyte symbiosis to increase resistance of the native grass Poa alsodes to invasion by the non-native grass Microstegium vimineum

et al. 2011

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Microbial symbionts can improve the competitive ability and stress tolerance of plant hosts and thus may enhance native plant resistance against invaders. We investigated whether symbiosis between a native grass, Poa alsodes, and a fungal endophyte (Neotyphodium sp.) improved the grass's ability to compete against Microstegium vimineum (Japanese stiltgrass), a common invader in the eastern USA. We challenged naturally endophyte-symbiotic and experimentally endophyte-free P. alsodes plants with the invader. In the first experiment, we manipulated symbiosis and water availability to test for context-dependency in symbiont benefits. In the second experiment, we manipulated symbiosis and M. vimineum diversity (the number of invader populations), since greater intraspecific diversity is expected to improve invasion success and might alter the efficacy of symbiosis in invasion resistance. In both experiments, presence of the endophyte reduced the per plant biomass of M. vimineum and increased P. alsodes biomass. We found no evidence that benefits of the symbiont depended on water availability, and population-level diversity had a minor influence on M. vimineum: inflorescence number showed a parabolic relationship with increasing numbers of M. vimineum populations. Overall, symbiosis in the native grass had stronger effects on invader growth than either water availability or invader genetic diversity. Our results suggest that endophyte symbioses in native plants can increase host performance against an invader, although this conclusion needs confirmation in more complex field settings where other important factors, such as herbivores and fluctuating abiotic conditions, come into play.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential for endophyte symbiosis to increase resistance of the native grass Poa alsodes to invasion by the non-native grass Microstegium vimineum

et al. 2011

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“…For postzygotic transmission failure, the patterns associated with environmental conditions are well documented. The temperature and humidity to which infected seeds are exposed affect the survival of the endophyte mycelia and, therefore, depending on these environmental factors, variable proportions of viable endophyte-infected seeds produce non-infected seedlings (Siegel et al 1984b;Rolston et al 1986;Welty et al 1987). In addition, it has been observed that infected seeds that passed through the digestive tract of steer produce substantially larger proportions of non-infected seedlings that control infected seeds (Siegel et al 1984a).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neotyphodiumendophyte infection frequency in annual grass populations: relative importance of mutualism and transmission efficiency

et al. 2008

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Persistence and ubiquity of vertically transmitted Neotyphodium endophytes in grass populations is puzzling because infected plants do not consistently exhibit increased fitness. Using an annual grass population model, we show that the problems for matching endophyte infection and mutualism are likely to arise from difficulties in detecting small mutualistic effects, variability in endophyte transmission efficiency and an apparent prevalence of non-equilibrium in the dynamics of infection. Although endophytes would ultimately persist only if the infection confers some fitness increase to the host plants, such an increase can be very small, as long as the transmission efficiency is sufficiently high. In addition, imperfect transmission limits effectively the equilibrium infection level if the infected plants exhibit small or large reproductive advantage. Under frequent natural conditions, the equilibrium infection level is very sensitive to small changes in transmission efficiency and host reproductive advantage, while convergence to such an equilibrium is slow. As a consequence, seed immigration and environmental fluctuation are likely to keep local infection levels away from equilibrium. Transient dynamics analysis suggests that, when driven by environmental fluctuation, infection frequency increases would often be larger than decreases. By contrast, when due to immigration, overrepresentation of infected individuals tends to vanish faster than equivalent overrepresentation of noninfected individuals.

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“…Some authors assert that the incidence of endophytes in populations does not necessarily reflect the advantages or disadvantages that endophytes confer to the hosts (Saikkonen et al 2002) because endophytes could be lost along the life cycle of the host (Afkhami and Rudgers 2008). Environmental conditions can alter the efficiency of the transmission of the endophytes through seeds or tillers (Welty et al 1987;Afkhami and Rudgers 2008;Hill and Roach 2009). Mathematical models predict that in annual grasses any existing spatial or temporal variability in transmission efficiency should be expected to drive the patterns of endophyte infection frequency (Gundel et al 2008).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diversity and distribution of Neotyphodium-infected grasses in Argentina

et al. 2010

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In the present work, we studied the presence of "epichloë/neotyphodium endophytes" in native grasses from Argentina. An extensive area of this country, representative of several different environments, was studied. Nine new host species of the genera Briza, Bromus and Poa were observed to be infected with asexual seedborne endophytes. Epichloë stromata were not observed on any grass species. The incidence of infection in natural populations was highly variable among host species and among populations of the same host species. Morphological characterization revealed differences among the endophytes of different host species and among endophytes of different populations of the same host species. We also summarize the previous knowledge and present unpublished data on host diversity and distribution of these fungi in Argentina.Our results are discussed and compared with previous studies on endophytes in Argentina. This work supports the hypothesis that sexual species (Epichloë) are not present in the southern hemisphere, and suggests the existence of a high diversity of asexual endophytes in South America.

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Influence of Moisture Content, Temperature, and Length of Storage on Seed Germination and Survival of Endophytic Fungi in Seeds of Tall Fescue and Perennial Ryegrass

Cited by 94 publications

References 0 publications

Potential for endophyte symbiosis to increase resistance of the native grass Poa alsodes to invasion by the non-native grass Microstegium vimineum

Potential for endophyte symbiosis to increase resistance of the native grass Poa alsodes to invasion by the non-native grass Microstegium vimineum

Neotyphodiumendophyte infection frequency in annual grass populations: relative importance of mutualism and transmission efficiency

Diversity and distribution of Neotyphodium-infected grasses in Argentina

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