Forest structure and fungal endophytes

Sufficient biodiversity is required for ecosystem functions. The question is how we can assess required biodiversity if we are able to recognize only a fraction of diversity, and/or unable to place a known species into a trophic level or into their niche dimensions. The species diversity of higher plants and animals usually can be assessed in most terrestrial environments. In contrast, microbial diversity is often ignored although the number and genetic diversity of microbes is enormous, and are profoundly important as plant and animal mutualists, pathogens, parasites and saprobes. Thus, one of the biggest challenges when disentangling relevant diversity to ecosystem functions is to reveal composition of focal microbial assemblage and the place of the key groups of them in the food web. In this review I focus on ubiquitous but poorly understood group of foliar fungi, asymptomatic endophytic fungi, of woody plants emphasizing how geographic, age and genetic structure of forest might affect endophyte-plant interactions.