ABSTRACT
Department of Plant Biology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA
Joseph F. Bischoff
National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
Ann E. Arnold
Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA
9.1 INTRODUCTION
Fungal endophytes live inside of plant tissues (e.g., roots, stems, leaves) without causing apparent harm to their host. Although the definition of the term
endophyte
is a matter of debate (Wilson, 1995a), throughout this chapter we refer to endophytes as those fungi that live inside of foliar plant tissue, excluding a discussion of stem-(see Evans et al., 2003) and root-associated (i.e., mycorrhizal) fungi. Foliar endophytes are highly diverse and have been documented in nearly all plants sampled (e.g., mosses, liverworts, ferns, conifers, and angiosperms; see Carroll, 1988; Clay, 1988; Petrini, 1991; Arnold et al., 2000, 2003; Arnold, 2002; Davis et al., 2003). Despite the growing recognition of their occurrence among species representing many plant lineages, their ecological roles are still poorly understood.
