Endophytic Fungal Diversity and their Interaction with Plants for Agriculture Sustainability Under Stressful Condition

Abstract

Endophytic fungi or endophytes as fascinating group of organism that colonize widely the healthy internal tissues of living plants, and do not cause any symptoms of disease in the host cells. Several decades of study and research have rustled the co-existing endophytes with their host plants, which can significantly influence the formation of metabolic products in plants, its ability to produce new interesting bioactive compound, which are of pharmaceutical, industrial and agricultural importance. The analytical results indicate that the endophytic fungi can confer profound impacts on plant communities by enhancing their growth, increasing their fitness, strengthening their tolerances to abiotic and biotic stresses, enhance defense mechanism and promoting their accumulation of secondary metabolites that provide immunity to the victims. This review focused on the biodiversity and biological roles of endophytic fungi in association with their host plants through reviewing of published research data obtained from the last 30 years. (Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.net.)