Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi orchestrate belowground microbiomes in plant holobionts.

Authors

Letian Wang, Lin Zhang, Matthias C Rillig, Marcel G A van der Heijden, Nancy C Johnson, Gu Feng

Published in

Trends in plant science. Jul 30, 2026. Epub Jul 30, 2026.

Abstract

The traditional model of plant-arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal coevolution, based solely on interactions between plants and AM fungi, became obsolete with the discovery of the critical roles that belowground microbiomes play in the function of mycorrhizal symbiosis. Based on insights into hyphosphere microbiota, we expand the plant-AM fungus-bacterium continuum into a multipartite AM fungal-orchestrated holobiont (H-AMF) framework, where AM fungi integrate plant roots with soil microbiota into a cross-kingdom ecological unit. A division of labor exists among plants, AM fungi, and hyphosphere microbes in the mycocentric H-AMF perspective. We summarize mechanisms by which AM fungi sustain cooperative relationships with plants and hyphosphere microbiota and propose holobiont-scale methodologies to advance understanding of plant-fungal-microbial interactions and their ecological functions.

PMID:
42532766
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 31 Jul 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.