367 © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 P. Kumar et al. (eds.), Current Trends in Plant Disease Diagnostics and Management Practices, Fungal Biology, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-27312-9_16 In Vitro Antimycotic and Biosynthetic Potential of Fungal Endophytes Associated with Schima Wallichii Vineet Kumar Mishra, Ajit Kumar Passari, and Bhim Pratap Singh Introduction Diversity of Endophytic Fungi Increasing emergence of drug resistant organisms such as bacteria, virus and fungi has alarmed the necessity of investigating new molecules with better bio- activity (Bhagat et al. 2012). Exploring secondary metabolites from microorgan- isms isolated from specialized ecological niches or unusual habitats enhances the chances of finding bioactive compounds (Wagenaar et al. 2000; Rodriguez et al. 2008; Wang et al. 2008). Endosphere of plants harbors microbial population in a symbiotic relationship without causing any apparent disease symptoms are reported as endophytic microbial population (Stone et al. 2000). There are esti- mated about 300,000 reported plant species on earth and almost all have endo- phytic microbial population, which resides in internal tissues and helps plants in their survival. Interestingly, some rare bioactive compounds produced by plants can also produced by their endophytes (Aly et al. 2010). They reside within tis- sues of almost all terrestrial plants (Hyde and Soytong 2008; Lin et al. 2010) and are the important components of plant-microbe ecosystem. Endophytes resides in all tissues of plants and showed multifarious relationships with the host, rang- ing from symbiosis to balanced antagonism (Bacon and White 2000; Rodriguez et al. 2008). Endophytic fungi are believed to have evolved from weak pathogenic fungi which on due course of time lost virulence and started living as symbiont inside the tissues or V.K. Mishra • A.K. Passari • B.P. Singh (*) Molecular Microbiology and Systematics Laboratory, Department of Biotechnology, Mizoram University, Aizawl, Mizoram 796004, India e-mail: bhimpratap@gmail.com