Isolation of endophytes: The leaves of 24 plant species were collected in the Amazon Rainforest biome, in Cayenne and Roura, French Guiana. After collection, the plant material was washed with sterile water and surface sterilised by sequential immersion in 70% aqueous ethanol (3 min), followed by 5% aqueous sodium hypochlorite (5 min) and finally by 70% aqueous ethanol (1 min). After these procedures, the leaves were rinsed with sterilised water. The residual sterilised water was incubated in Petri dishes to ensure that all the epiphytic microorganisms were eliminated. The surface-sterilised leaves were cut into 64 small pieces which were placed in 2 ml Eppendorf tubes containing 1 ml of potato dextrose agar medium (PDA, Fluka Analytical, Germany) at 26 ℃. Each individual hyphal tip of emerging fungi was removed and placed on a sterile PDA culture medium in 10 cm Petri dishes. The leaf fragments were cultured for a maximum of 5 months. All strains, including bacteria, were cultivated on solid PDA medium at 26 ℃ for 15 days, on 3 Petri dishes of 14 cm diameter (150 cm²). On the large scale, the microorganisms were cultivated under the identical conditions with 130 Petri dishes of 14 cm diameter (2 m²).