User:Mosstradamus/sandbox

=Phyllosphere=

The phyllosphere is a term used in microbiology to refer to the total aboveground portions of plants as habitat for microorganisms. The belowground microbial habitats (i.e. the thin-volume of soil surrounding root or subterranean stem surfaces) are referred to as the rhizosphere and laimosphere. The phyllosphere can be further subdivided into the phylloplane and anthosphere, which encompass the outer surfaces of stems and leaves, and flowers respectively. Vegetation modeling efforts have estimated global leaf area to be on the order of 4 to 5 x 108 km2 which represents an immense microbial habitat that is roughly twice the size of the terrestrial land surface when considering both upper and lower leaf surfaces. All plants interact with diverse communities of microorganisms including bacteria, fungi, archaea, protists, and viruses, and microbial inhabitants of the phyllosphere can influence their hosts in many different ways. Some are beneficial to the plant, others act as phytopathogens and may damage or even kill the host plant, however, the majority of microbial colonists on any given plant have no detectable effect on plant growth or function.

Fungi
Aerial plant surfaces are habitat to many fungal taxa that range in their interaction with plant host from pathogenic, parasitic, commensal, to beneficial. Compared to their bacterial counterparts, fungal inhabitants of the phyllosphere appear to be relatively less abundant, though some groups (namely yeasts) can maintain significant populations on leaves. The distinction between strictly epiphytic and endophytic lifestyle can be challenging for some phyllosphere fungi, as many species can partially penetrate leaf tissues, or become opportunistic endophytes, gaining entry through wounds or stomata. Nonetheless, there is a there is a quickly growing body of literature that is elucidating the unique features and importance of foliar fungal endophytes.

Diversity
Fungi have long been observed in the phyllosphere, though because early studies relied solely on culture-dependent methods and microscopy to study phyllosphere fungal communities, only a small portion of the diversity was captured. Recent studies employing next-generation sequencing and other molecular techniques have uncovered hyperdiverse fungal communities associated with plant foliage. Across studies, it appears that members of the phylum Ascomycota comprise the dominant components of phyllosphere fungal communities, followed by members of the Basidiomycota. It is unclear, however, to what degree these taxa are actively associated with the plant host as resting propagules such as spores can inflate species abundance measures in molecular studies.