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After a tree falls in the forest, fungi help decompose it. They are are responsible for a number of diseases in trees and plants. But certain kinds of fungi can actually help a plant to resist other forms of disease. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet. Endophytes are a fungus that live within plants. Virtually every plant or tree we know of is a host to an endophyte.
“The beneficial effects of fungal endophytes can be useful in forestry and in agriculture by providing additional resistance to the host. “
Dr. Rebecca Ganley is with the Department of Forest Resources at the University of Idaho. She says that having a diverse population of endophytes in a forest trees will help the trees ward off disease and survive adverse conditions.
“For instance, clear cutting would not be wise if you’re wanting to maintain resistance. For those you’d like to have a pool ofof fungi in some of the trees that could produce spores and colonize the other trees.”
“And in general, we find that in an old growth area you have a wide array of fungal endophytes, very diverse population and a lot of them present. And if we go into managed stands, where it’s aa monoculture ofof just western white pine, we find that the diversity isis much lower. And with plants which have been planted in outside locations in arboretums, backyards, they also have a very low diversity. They still have a lot of endophytes present, but they just don’t have the diversity that old growth do. And so, we don’t really know what most of these fungal endophytes do at this stage, and, potentially, if you have a low diversity, you will have less resistance against different diseases, or you may not be able to tolerate certain weather conditions.”
We’ll hear more on fungi in future programs. Pulse of the Planet is made possible by the National Science Foundation. music