Bacterial-fungal interactions: connections and consequences.
Hall RA, Baxter KJ
Soil Health
The invisible web of bacteria and fungi living in your garden soil is more like a coordinated community than a random mix — and understanding how they talk to each other could lead to new ways to help plants fight disease or grow stronger without synthetic inputs.
Tiny bacteria and fungi are constantly interacting in the soil around plant roots — sharing chemicals, swapping nutrients, and even influencing each other's genes. This review pulls together what scientists know about how these partnerships work across plants, animals, and buildings. The big takeaway is that these microbial communities function more like a coordinated team than a random crowd, which opens doors to using them intentionally to improve plant and soil health.
Key Findings
Bacteria and fungi interact through four main channels: physical contact, chemical signaling, nutrient exchange, and gene-level regulation — all of which shape how microbial communities form and behave.
The same types of bacterial-fungal interactions occur across plant, animal, and built-environment microbiomes, but the outcomes differ by context, making environmental specificity critical for practical application.
The authors propose treating cross-kingdom microbial communities as structured, interdependent networks analogous to multicellular organisms — a conceptual shift with implications for how we design microbiome-based technologies.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Bacteria and fungi don't just coexist in soil and on plant roots — they actively communicate, trade nutrients, and shape each other's behavior in ways that ripple up to affect plant health, human health, and even the buildings we live in.
Abstract Preview
In nature, microorganisms exist in multispecies microbial communities containing bacteria, fungi, archaea, and viruses. The organisation, behaviour, and ecological impact of these communities are v...
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