Endophytes: Their Role in Plant Pathology

All plants in natural ecosystems appear to be symbiotic with endophytes. This highly diverse group of microorganism can have profound impacts on plant communities through increasing fitness by conferring abiotic and biotic stress tolerance, increasing biomass and decreasing water consumption, or decreasing fitness by altering resource allocation. Despite more than 100 yr of research resulting in thousands of journal articles, the ecological significance of endophy tesremains poorly characterized. The repertoire of their effects and functions in plant has not been comprehensively defined. The challenge and goal is to be able to manage microbial communities to favor plant colonization by beneficial endophytes.