Potential Role of Endophytes for Sustainable Environment

Abstract

Endophytes are symptomless fungal and bacterial microorganisms found in almost all living plants. They are vital components of plant microbiomes. Endophytes affect plant growth and plant responses to pathogens, herbivores, and environmental change by producing a range of natural products having antifungal, antibacterial, and insecticidal properties. Endophytes have shown particular promise in agriculture particularly as beneficial crop inoculants and are known to enhance abiotic and biotic plant stress tolerance by increasing tolerance to drought and water stress, as well as tolerance to high temperature and high salinity. A better understanding of their plant growth-promoting mechanisms could simplify higher production of energy crops in a more sustainable manner even on marginal land and feed stocks for industrial processes, thus contribute to avoiding conflicts between food and energy production Many endophytes can be exploited to improve the efficiency of phytoremediation as they are found to be resistant to heavy metals and capable of detoxifying organic contaminants.