Fusarium Head Blight From a Microbiome Perspective.

The fungal genus causes several diseases in cereals, including Fusarium head blight (FHB). A number of species are involved in disease development and mycotoxin contamination. Lately, the importance of interactions between plant pathogens and the plant microbiome has been increasingly recognized. In this review, we address the significance of the cereal microbiome for the development of -related diseases. fungi may interact with the host microbiome at multiple stages during their life cycles and in different plant organs including roots, stems, leaves, heads, and crop residues. There are interactions between and other fungi and bacteria as well as among species. Recent studies have provided a map of the cereal microbiome and revealed how different biotic and abiotic factors drive microbiome assembly. This review synthesizes the current understanding of the cereal microbiome and the implications for infection, FHB development, disease control, and mycotoxin contamination. Although annual and regional variations in predominant species are significant, much research has focused on . Surveying the total community in environmental samples is now facilitated with novel metabarcoding methods. Further, infection with multiple species has been shown to affect disease severity and mycotoxin contamination. A better mechanistic understanding of such multiple infections is necessary to be able to predict the outcome in terms of disease development and mycotoxin production. The knowledge on the composition of the cereal microbiome under different environmental and agricultural conditions is growing. Future studies are needed to clearly link microbiome structure to suppression in order to develop novel disease management strategies for example based on conservation biological control approaches.