Fusarium Fungi Pathogens, Identification, Adverse Effects, Disease Management, and Global Food Security: A Review of the Latest Research

Abstract

Fusarium pathogens are ubiquitous and mainly associated with diseases in plants. They are the subject of great economic concern in agriculture due to crop losses to contamination of cereal grains with mycotoxins. Fusarium species are also considered agents of human and animal mycotic infections, having a wide-ranging spectrum of clinical manifestations in immunocompromised patients. Fusarium phytopathogens infect a wide variety of plants and cause symptoms ranging from stunted growth, fruit or seed decay, yellowing, and wilting of the leaves and cankers to root or stem decay. The identification of these fungi is difficult due to their pleomorphic tendency and the presence of both homothallic and heterothallic strains in the same species, and so is identifying them at species level because of variation among isolates. However, molecular tools have so far been very powerful in species identification and phylogeny, as the great diversity of the Fusarium genus has compelled scientists to continuously revise previous taxons. Mostly, Fusarium diseases are difficult to control, as fungi easily overcome host resistance to various methods of control. We present an overview of the recent research on Fusarium fungi, its adverse effects, and its impacts on food security. We further elucidate various methods of identifying them to encourage much-needed research on integrated management of this unavoidable food contaminant to achieve sustainable global food security.