Agave seed endophytes: Ecology and impacts on root architecture, nutrient acquisition, and cold stress tolerance

Abstract

The genus Agave comprises plants that are a source of nutrients for humans and animals and can support their ecosystems. Agave extinction may impact a long list of organisms including plants, pollinators, animals, and soil microorganisms. Agaves have an extraordinary adaptability to arid and semiarid environments. Physiological and morphological strategies allow them to survive under extreme conditions such as drought and high temperature (up to 61°C). In recent decades it has been discovered that bacterial and fungal communities in plants are not simple passengers, and this is especially true for microbial communities of seeds. Seed transmission of endophytic microbes appears to be important in shaping the endophyte community in the mature plant and consequently acts as the initial inoculum for the plant microbiota. Those microbes participate in seedling growth, favor intake of nutrients and resistance to abiotic and biotic stress, and, in some extreme cases, can be used as "food" for the plants.