Plant Microbiology: Phycology & Mycology

The plant microbiome, which colonises all accessible plant tissue, is a varied yet taxonomically structured community of microorganisms found in healthy plants. Plant-associated microbiomes provide plant hosts with fitness benefits such as growth promotion, nutrient uptake, stress tolerance, and disease resistance.

• Plant microbiota
• Microbiome of rhizosphere
• Phyllosphere microbiome

Phycology is a discipline of biology devoted to the scientific study of algae and seaweeds. Algae are photosynthetic eukaryotes, except for blue-green algae, which are prokaryotic. Because of their morphological and physiological characteristics, they are closely related to plants.

Mycology is a branch of biology that investigates and characterises a large group of organisms known as fungi. There are over 90,000 species in this category, with thousands more being described every year. It is estimated that there are over one million fungal species in the globe, making the fungal kingdom one of the most important in the tree of life.