Tolerance to environmental stresses: Do fungal endophytes mediate plasticity in Solanum dulcamara?

Salinity imposes constraints on plant growth and development. Efforts have been made to develop salt-tolerant crops by different methods, the outcomes have not yet been sufficiently satisfactory. Plants depend on their symbiotic partners such as fungal symbionts to cope with stress conditions such as salinity. Bittersweet nightshade (Solanum dulcamara) has a wide ecological amplitude. Although S. dulcamara is becoming a model plant species, its associated fungal symbionts have hardly been studied. Here we propose that its symbiotic, endophytic fungi may be responsible for S. dulcamara's wide ecological amplitude. We examined the composition of endophytic fungal communities in S. dulcamara from contrasting habitats, i.e., dry and wet regions. We developed a method to select potential isolates based on their ability to colonize, grow and impart tolerance under stress conditions. The isolates identified from this study could potentially be used to improve crop productivity under suboptimal conditions.