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The communication via signaling of chemicals is perhaps one of the earliest forms of communications. The most commonly known interspecific chemical substance such as pheromones is often known to engage in the attraction of mates in insects. Hence, the sensing of environmental and interindividual communication via pheromone systems is fundamental to most organisms that help in guiding the interactional behavior, development, and overall physiological activities. Likewise, the role of pheromones is revealed in fungal species in terms of their role in several cellular activities. The role of pheromones in fungi has been largely unexplored. However, there are few fungal hormones/pheromones such as sirenin, trisporic acid, antheridiol, oogoniol, and peptide hormone in yeast that were documented. Further studies are still underway for their significance in the biology of fungi as a whole and implications they might have on the overall ecosystem. In this chapter, we discuss various progresses made in understanding pheromone related to mating in kingdom fungi and the role of pheromone receptors.

In nature, a wide variety of association is present which is mutually favorable among partners. One such association exists in almost all terrestrial ecosystems among most of plants on land with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AM) which is a symbiosis between obligate biotrophic fungi that belongs to the phylum Glomeromycota. However, the association of AM is the most important one as it contributes in most diverse ways towards influencing plant as a whole in most eco-friendly way possible. AM make a positive contribution to growth, yield, pathogen protection, stress tolerance and maintenance of agricultural ecosystem health and sustainability. AM fungi are an eco-friendly biological substitute to chemical fertilizers for better performance of agricultural plants. Introduction of AM inoculum into the agricultural soil is one of the alternative strategies for re-establishing the natural richness of AM fungi which minimizing the conventional chemical fertilization practices. Mass production of AM fungi for application in the agricultural field is one of the challenging aspects. So, present review emphasizes on the mycorrhizal inoculation is a keystone to multifunctional role in agriculture and its mass production for introduction in agricultural field.

At present, the major global challenge is to accomplish future food security without interfering with the present environment or ecosystem. The global crop production suffers largely due to several pests, insects, or diseases which are being controlled widely by the use of detrimental agrochemicals which are now being considered to damage our health and ecosystem. Therefore, various other alternatives of biological origin are being looked upon for their application as bio-fertilizer or biological control agents such as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), Trichoderma spp., plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), and endophytes. Moreover, many other probable microorganisms are still being discovered, and their ecological roles are being studied as well. Therefore, appropriate selection and investigation for applying them effectively with the use of novel technologies have huge potential to safeguard our future food and environment. In addition, many underlying mechanisms which are previously unknown during interaction for crop health improvement can be unveiled by the use of modern technologies such as clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR/Cas), transcriptomics, proteomics, genomics, etc. Even plant growth-promoting traits are being tailored by the use of modern gene engineering techniques which will definitely improve overall plant health, thereby leading to food security. Thus, this chapter presents a brief overview of recent trends in application of various microbial interactions with the twenty-first century technology for crop productivity and overall sustainability of our agricultural ecosystem for our future generation.

Fusarium oxysporum is an important soilborne destructive plant pathogen that has an effect on several plant species worldwide. The suggested practice for their effective control was the integration of several management practices, but it remains elusive till now. Since it is important to develop disease-resistant and high-yielding crops due to the increase in food demand with minimum utilization of natural resources, it is necessary that the prerequisite employment methodology be of biological origin and that the candidature for the role of biological control agents implies antagonists in various plant–microbe interactions such as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and Trichoderma spp. This review proposes a framework that might be helpful in the use of AM fungi and Trichoderma spp. for their effective biocontrol of several plant pathogens and insights into the mechanisms involved. Also, a relationship between arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi or Trichoderma spp. and the host plant is being emphasized upon for improved health and growth for production in present agricultural systems. Therefore, this review focuses on some approaches aimed at the biocontrol of F. oxysporum and biotechnological advancement involved in it for paving insights for future research.

Sclerotium rolfsii (Sacc.) is the causal agent of stem-rot of groundnut plants which is an important damaging soil-borne root pathogen worldwide. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi ( Glomus fasciculatum ) and Trichoderma asperelloides have shown potential bio-control agent properties against several soil-borne plant pathogens. Interactions between G. fasciculatum , T. asperelloides and soil-borne pathogen S. rolfsii were investigated in this present pot culture experiment. The inoculation of G. fasciculatum and T. asperelloides reduced the severity of disease but their combinations were most effective in reducing harmful effects of S. rolfsii . The arbuscule percentage of AM fungi was affected by presence of T. asperelloides but chlorophyll content got increased by AM fungi or T. asperelloides treatments during S. rolfsii attack. The defense related physiological, biochemical and anti-oxidant activities observed in roots of groundnut plant significantly increased by single inoculation of AM fungi or Trichoderma . But, the combined inoculations of AM fungi and Trichoderma species showed the highest defense related activities. Moreover, single application of either AM fungi or Trichoderma species showed potential for the biocontrol of soil-borne plant pathogen but their combined application attributed most substantial inhibition in development of pathogen