Posy E. Busby

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify priorities for research in this area: (1) develop model host-microbiome systems for crop plants and non-crop plants with associated microbial culture collections and reference genomes, (2) define core microbiomes and metagenomes in these model systems, (3) elucidate the rules of synthetic, functionally programmable microbiome assembly, and (4) determine functional mechanisms of plant microbiome interactions.

TL;DR: This review highlights the importance of fungal endophytes for plant disease across a broad range of plant pathosystems, yet simultaneously reveals that complexity within plant microbiomes presents a significant challenge to disentangling the biotic environmental factors affecting plant disease severity.

TL;DR: This review synthesizes current knowledge of fungal functional ecology, taxonomy and systematics and introduces a novel database offungal functional traits (FunFun), built to interface with other databases to explore and predict how fungalfunctional diversity varies by taxonomy, guild, and other evolutionary or ecological grouping variables.

TL;DR: This study reveals that disease modification is an ecological function shared by common foliar fungal symbionts of P. trichocarpa, and raises new questions about plant disease ecology and plant biodiversity, and has applied potential for disease management.

TL;DR: It is suggested that deciduous and evergreen trees could respond to differential water availability and herbivory in their respective habitats by converging on distinct leaf-trait syndromes.