ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.

Sec. Plant Symbiotic Interactions

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1597807

Taxonomic diversity in the global wheat phyllosphere mycobiomea meta analysis

Provisionally accepted
  • 1University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 2Lund University, Lund, Skane County, Sweden

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is a major crop grown on all continents. Due to environmental concerns, it is desirable to reduce the inputs of both chemical pesticides and inorganic fertilizers. However, yield reduction must be expected when switching to low-input systems. To mitigate such losses, the use of natural or introduced microbiomes may provide the key to maintaining sustainable yield. Phyllosphere fungi, both endophytic and phylloplane-associated, colonize aboveground plant structures, some of which have the potential to mitigate biotic and abiotic stressors. A first step toward realizing the potential of the wheat microbiome is to map the current knowledge on wheat phyllosphere fungi. This meta-analysis aims to map the diversity and abundance of fungal taxa associated with the wheat phyllosphere across global wheat-producing areas. To this end, we searched previous published literature and retrieved fungal community data from relevant studies. Retrieved studies included both culturing-based and metabarcoding amplicon sequence-based studies. We retrieved and analyzed 33 studies from five regions across the world, which differed greatly in their taxonomic composition. Across all regions, we found that while the majority of identified genera were unique to individual studies, some genera occurred across all five wheat growing regions, specifically Alternaria,

Keywords: wheat, phyllosphere, Fungi, Mycobiome, Datamining, Meta-analysis

Received: 21 Mar 2025; Accepted: 02 Jul 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Fischer, Rzepczynska and Kjøller. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Rasmus Kjøller, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

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