Croplands harbour widespread fungal allies against plant-parasitic nematodes

A global analysis carried out by NEM-EMERGE partners has revealed the widespread presence fungal nematode antagonists, a category of fungi with the potential to play a role in durable management of plant-parasitic nematodes. The study, recently published in the journal Applied Soil Ecology, is the first to systematically investigate their global distribution.

The study was conducted by mining the GlobalFungi database and analysing of nearly 28,000 soil samples from 484 studies, covering a wide range of geographical regions, climates and biomes. The aim was to determine the biogeography of fungal nematode antagonists at the global level and to assess how this is affected by environmental conditions, such as mean annual temperature, annual precipitation and pH.

The results revealed that 82% of all soil samples contained at least one fungal nematode antagonist. The probability of detecting an antagonist was highest in croplands (88%), woodlands (82%) and grasslands (76%). Their analyses revealed that most of the common nematode antagonists show remarkably little biogeography at a global level, and no nematode-antagonistic fungus was found to be geographically limited to a single global region. In croplands, especially pH was revealed to be an important predictor of relative abundances of nematode antagonists

Overall, the study reveals that fungal antagonists of plant-parasitic nematodes are already widespread in croplands, including fungi used as biological control agents. For NEM-EMERGE, these findings highlight the potential of indigenous fungal communities as a resource for sustainable nematode management, providing a global foundation for exploring how the hidden suppressive potential of cropland soils can be harnessed. They propose future studies should focus on stimulating antagonistic nematodes’ lifestyle, such as the manipulation of soil pH.