Endophyte Fungi Can Confer Plant Tolerance to Abiotic Stress

Dear Colleagues,

Why is this important? As of 2010, less than 40% of the Earth’s land area, about the same area as South America, was considered farmable. Farmable land can be used year after year for growing field crops, such as legumes or grain. Another 10% was considered suitable for growing tree fruits or as pasture. 

In November 2022, the world’s population reached 8 billion people. There will never be more land or fewer people. 

What is an extreme environment?  Abiotic factors can be physical or chemical. Unlike biotic factors (competition or disease), Abiotic factors affect all organisms in the affected region. If considering rainfall, arid land receives less than 25cm of rain per year. Some arid sites are in places with high evaporation from wind or heat. Topsoil may be scant (parts of Amazonia) or oxidized (the Sahel) with few microbes or burrowing insects. These soils hold little water, meaning farming is almost impossible and herding is difficult.   

One third of Earth’s land surface is a cold (e.g., Antarctica) or a hot (e.g., the Sahara) desert. Deserts have low numbers of plants and animals, and low species diversity.  

In cities, which typically develop from villages built on or near good farmland, extreme environments include the soil under roads and highways, or under buildings.  In these places, the sun never shines and rain never falls. At the surface, weedy plants might grow in cracks.  

Some factories use or make toxic compounds. Gasolines have toxic and corrosive components, such as naphthenic acids, which corrode storage tanks. Construction companies often strip off the topsoil from a site before starting to create brownfields. Americans use 10 million tonnes of road salt, annually, which is toxic to plants. 

We have found microbial endophytes that confer robust plant tolerance to drought or salt stress, allowing them to thrive. 

Dr. Susan Kaminskyj
Guest Editor

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• endorhizal fungi associated with plants growing in extreme environments