Trophic interactions between Fusarium species and soil fauna: A meta-analysis of experimental studies

Even though Fusarium is an important genus of fungi, both phytopathogenic and toxigenic, that infects various cereals worldwide, the existing methods of Fusarium spp. suppression in agroecosystems are not sufficiently operative. On the other hand, being tightly linked to plant residues it its life cycle, Fusarium spp. could be expected to interact with detrital food webs. Over the past 30 years, 21 quantitative studies have been published on the effect of soil fauna on the abundance and pathogenicity of Fusarium species. In this paper, we summarize the available data on the trophic interactions between Fusarium species and soil organisms, particularly soil fauna. On the average, Fusarium species are shown to be 2.4 times (95% CI, 1.3-4.4) more preferable as food source compared to other soil fungi for earthworms and 1.7 times (95% CI, 1.4-2.0) for collembolans. Compared to other species of soil fungi, feeding on Fusarium spp. increases the growth of soil fauna by 18.2% (95% CI, 12.4-24.1). Soil animals reduce the content of deoxynivalenol (DON) in Fusarium-infected wheat straw and soil by 24.3 mg kg(-1) (95% CI, 18.0-30.6). Overall, soil fauna diminish the abundance of Fusarium species in experimental systems by 20.0% (95% CI, 9.9-30.1). Thus, our meta-analysis suggests that soil fauna is capable of suppressing the abundance of Fusarium spp. in arable ecosystems, while manipulating the structure of detrital food webs might be useful for affecting the soil phase of Fusarium species. However, a very limited array of potential biocontrol agents has been tested, with studies on the feeding interactions between Fusarium species and soil mites and nematodes being particularly scarce.