Towards a global core mycobiome of banana (Musa spp.)

Bananas ( Musa spp.) are a staple for more than 400 million people and a major global commodity, yet production remains highly vulnerable to disease. Although healthy plants host diverse fungal communities, high diversity and strong site-to-site compositional turnover hinder efforts to understand and manage these mycobiomes. Identifying taxa that consistently persist across environments may therefore help prioritise targets for further investigation. We used ITS2 metabarcoding of bulk soil and the ectorhizosphere from a single banana cultivar grown in distinct plantation soils across six countries spanning Africa, Asia, and Australia. Across 24 sites, we identified 59 core fungal taxa that met prevalence–abundance criteria across multiple sites and compartments. Despite representing