Happy New Year! This episode: Fungal endophytes transferred from healthy adult plant leaf litter help baby cacao plants resist disease!

Thanks to Dr. Natalie Christian for her contribution!

Download Episode (10.3 MB, 11.25 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Lactobacillus virus Lb338-1

News item
Hear a CBC interview with Dr. Christian about this research

Journal Paper:
Christian N, Herre EA, Mejia LC, Clay K. 2017. Exposure to the leaf litter microbiome of healthy adults protects seedlings from pathogen damage. Proc R Soc B 284:20170641.

Other interesting stories:

• Using bacteria to clean up radioactive strontium from water (paper)
• Ocean bacteria make themselves slippery instead of sticky to avoid predators (paper)
• Which plants grow in tropics depends on how fungi interact with their seeds
• Using an antibiotic-sensing protein to control antibiotic production in bacteria
• Symbiotic fungi can help plants tolerate stresses better

 

Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening!

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