2025 Year-End Wrap-Up

Crop yield losses to insect pests pose a risk to food security. This Review assesses global trends of crop pest prevalence associated with global environmental change, identifies the underlying ecolog...

Plant Biotechnology Reports - Biocontrol offers a promising route to reduce agriculture’s reliance on synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, yet successes with single strains seldom scale to...

Plants establish symbiotic relationships with various mycorrhizal fungi, which may represent a crucial mechanism for different modes of nutrient cycling and soil ecological processes. However, our understanding of rhizosphere-specific microbial traits—such as fungal functional guilds and bacterial life-history strategies (copiotrophic vs. oligotrophic)—at the individual mycorrhizal tree species level remains limited. In this study, we examined how N addition (47.5 g N m−2 yr−1) affects bacterial and fungal communities in the rhizosphere of two dominant subtropical tree species: Castanopsis hystrix, an ectomycorrhizal (ECM) tree species, and Phoebe bournei, an arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) tree species. We used amplicon sequencing and ecological trait-based analyses to conduct this research. Nitrogen enrichment led to a reduction in bacterial α-diversity, favouring copiotrophic Gammaproteobacteria and r-strategists while suppressing oligotrophic groups, such as Acidobacteriia, Alphaproteobacteria, and Acidimicrobiia, along with K-strategists. Furthermore, adding N increased heterogeneity in bacterial β-diversity between mycorrhizal plant types, resulting in divergent shifts in copiotrophic and oligotrophic bacterial groups. This shift amplified community differentiation specific to the mycorrhizal plant type rather than promoting convergence. Fungal responses to N addition varied based on the host mycorrhizal plant type. In AM-associated P. bournei, N addition decreased the relative abundance of symbiotrophic AM fungi and reduced fungal α-diversity. Conversely, in ECM-associated C. hystrix, N addition suppressed both saprotrophic and symbiotrophic ECM fungi while increasing α-diversity, likely due to the growth of pathotrophic taxa. Despite these contrasting responses, N addition homogenised fungal β-diversity across mycorrhizal plant types, reducing differences among mycorrhizal-specific fungal guilds. Structural equation modelling revealed that soil N and P availability were the primary drivers of bacterial community restructuring. In contrast, fungal assemblages were impacted by both soil chemistry and root traits, notably fine root length. These findings highlight that N enrichment disrupts mycorrhizal plant type-specific microbial niche partitioning in subtropical forests, favouring copiotrophic bacteria and separating fungal communities from host identities, a potential mechanism driving ecosystem-level functional changes under elevated N deposition.

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The Handbook of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi 2e is an indispensable resource for undergraduate students and early-career researchers seeking a comprehensive introduction to the field of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). It provides a foundational understanding of AMF biology, classification, and ecological significance, presenting up-to-date information and protocols in a clear and accessible manner.

Apomixis, a form of clonal seed reproduction, offers a transformative approach to agriculture by enabling the stable fixation of hybrid vigor and elite heterozygosity across generations. However, the ...

The oomycete Phytophthora infestans is a damaging crop pathogen. Here, the authors show that a group of P. infestans secreted enzymes play roles in penetration and colonization of host plants by oxidi...

The evolutionary success of land plants is tied to their rhizosphere microbiomes. However, the principles governing how bacteria, fungi, and protists assemble and function across wild plants remain un...

A fully funded CIFRE PhD position is open at UniLaSalle Rouen, France, in collaboration with Gaïago. The research focuses on biostimulants and nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) in wheat and maize to support sustainable and resilient agroecosystems. Start date: January 2026.

<em>The Plant Genome</em> is an open access journal providing the latest advances and breakthroughs in plant genomics research, including genome analyses and engineering.

LexicMap uses a fixed set of probes to efficiently query gene sequences for fast and low-memory alignment.

Bacterial blight (BB), caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pathovar oryzae (Xoo), is a major rice disease in Asia and Africa. Xoo possesses virulence factors for pathogenicity and race differentiation that c...

Contribute to innovative Plant Science research using world-class facilities to unravel how plants cope with stressful abiotic environments.

Position Summary The Li lab in the Department of Plant Biology is recruiting a postdoctoral research associate to work on project(s) in plant molecular biology, biochemistry, and/or genomics. The idea...

Bacterial genome evolution is shaped to a great extent by horizontal gene transfer, detectable as genes with a presence-absence pattern of variation that does not follow phylogenetic relationships acr...