scholarly journals Fungal community assembly in drought-stressed sorghum shows stochasticity, selection, and universal ecological dynamics

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheng Gao ◽  
Liliam Montoya ◽  
Ling Xu ◽  
Mary Madera ◽  
Joy Hollingsworth ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Drought Stress ◽  
Plant Development ◽  
Fungal Community ◽  
Community Assembly ◽  
Experimental System ◽  
Plant Genotype ◽  
Plant Host ◽  
Stochastic Dispersal ◽  
Stochastic Forces ◽  
Host Development

AbstractCommunity assembly of crop-associated fungi is thought to be strongly influenced by deterministic selection exerted by the plant host, rather than stochastic processes. Here we use a simple, sorghum system with abundant sampling to show that stochastic forces (drift or stochastic dispersal) act on fungal community assembly in leaves and roots early in host development and when sorghum is drought stressed, conditions when mycobiomes are small. Unexpectedly, we find no signal for stochasticity when drought stress is relieved, likely due to renewed selection by the host. In our experimental system, the host compartment exerts the strongest effects on mycobiome assembly, followed by the timing of plant development and lastly by plant genotype. Using a dissimilarity-overlap approach, we find a universality in the forces of community assembly of the mycobiomes of the different sorghum compartments and in functional guilds of fungi.

scholarly journals Phyllosphere community assembly and response to drought stress on common tropical and temperate forage grasses

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily K. Bechtold ◽  
Stephanie Ryan ◽  
Sarah E. Moughan ◽  
Ravi Ranjan ◽  
Klaus Nüsslein
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Community ◽  
Drought Stress ◽  
Bacterial Community ◽  
Community Assembly ◽  
Community Diversity ◽  
Grass Species ◽  
Severe Drought ◽  
Hormone Production ◽  
Plant Host ◽  
Bacterial Community Diversity

Grasslands represent a critical ecosystem important for global food production, soil carbon storage, and water regulation. Current intensification and expansion practices add to the degradation of grasslands and dramatically increase greenhouse gas emissions and pollution. Thus, new ways to sustain and improve their productivity are needed. Research efforts focus on the plant-leaf microbiome, or phyllosphere, because its microbial members impact ecosystem function by influencing pathogen resistance, plant hormone production, and nutrient availability through processes including nitrogen fixation. However, little is known about grassland phyllospheres and their response to environmental stress. In this study, globally dominant temperate and tropical forage grass species were grown in a greenhouse under current climate conditions and drought conditions that mimic future climate predictions to understand if (i) plant host taxa influence microbial community assembly, (ii) microbial communities respond to drought stress, and (iii) phyllosphere community changes correlate to changes in plant host traits and stress-response strategies. Community analysis using high resolution sequencing revealed Gammaproteobacteria as the dominant bacterial class, which increased under severe drought stress on both temperate and tropical grasses while overall bacterial community diversity declined. Bacterial community diversity, structure, and response to drought were significantly different between grass species. This community dependence on plant host species correlated with differences in grass species traits, which became more defined under drought stress conditions, suggesting symbiotic evolutionary relationships between plant hosts and their associated microbial community. Further understanding these strategies and the functions microbes provide to plants will help us utilize microbes to promote agricultural and ecosystem productivity in the future.

scholarly journals Plant host and drought shape the root associated fungal microbiota in rice

PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e7463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatriz Andreo-Jimenez ◽  
Philippe Vandenkoornhuyse ◽  
Amandine Lê Van ◽  
Arvid Heutinck ◽  
Marie Duhamel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Drought Tolerance ◽  
Fungal Community ◽  
High Throughput Sequencing ◽  
Microbiota Composition ◽  
Plant Genotype ◽  
Drought Adaptation ◽  
Fungal Community Composition ◽  
Plant Host ◽  
Drought Period ◽  
Fungal Microbiota

Background and Aim Water is an increasingly scarce resource while some crops, such as paddy rice, require large amounts of water to maintain grain production. A better understanding of rice drought adaptation and tolerance mechanisms could help to reduce this problem. There is evidence of a possible role of root-associated fungi in drought adaptation. Here, we analyzed the endospheric fungal microbiota composition in rice and its relation to plant genotype and drought. Methods Fifteen rice genotypes (Oryza sativa ssp. indica) were grown in the field, under well-watered conditions or exposed to a drought period during flowering. The effect of genotype and treatment on the root fungal microbiota composition was analyzed by 18S ribosomal DNA high throughput sequencing. Grain yield was determined after plant maturation. Results There was a host genotype effect on the fungal community composition. Drought altered the composition of the root-associated fungal community and increased fungal biodiversity. The majority of OTUs identified belonged to the Pezizomycotina subphylum and 37 of these significantly correlated with a higher plant yield under drought, one of them being assigned to Arthrinium phaeospermum. Conclusion This study shows that both plant genotype and drought affect the root-associated fungal community in rice and that some fungi correlate with improved drought tolerance. This work opens new opportunities for basic research on the understanding of how the host affects microbiota recruitment as well as the possible use of specific fungi to improve drought tolerance in rice.

scholarly journals Phyllosphere Community Assembly and Response to Drought Stresson Common Tropical and Temperate Forage Grasses

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily K. Bechtold ◽  
Stephanie Ryan ◽  
Sarah E. Moughan ◽  
Ravi Ranjan ◽  
Klaus Nüsslein
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Community ◽  
Drought Stress ◽  
Bacterial Community ◽  
Community Assembly ◽  
Community Diversity ◽  
Grass Species ◽  
Plant Host ◽  
Bacterial Community Diversity ◽  
Climate Stress ◽  
Drought Conditions

Grasslands represent a critical ecosystem important for global food production, soil carbon storage, and water regulation. Current intensification and expansion practices add to the degradation of grasslands and dramatically increase greenhouse gas emissions and pollution. Thus, new ways to sustain and improve their productivity are needed. Research efforts focus on the plant-leaf microbiome, or phyllosphere, because its microbial members impact ecosystem function by influencing pathogen resistance, plant hormone production, and nutrient availability through processes including nitrogen fixation. However, little is known about grassland phyllospheres and their response to environmental stress. In this study, globally dominant temperate and tropical forage grass species were grown in a greenhouse under current climate conditions and drought conditions that mimic future climate predictions to understand if (i) plant host taxa influence microbial community assembly, (ii) microbial communities respond to drought stress, and (iii) phyllosphere community changes correlate to changes in plant host traits and stress-response strategies. Community analysis using high resolution sequencing revealed Gammaproteobacteria as the dominant bacterial class, which increased under severe drought stress on both temperate and tropical grasses while overall bacterial community diversity declined. Bacterial community diversity, structure, and response to drought were significantly different between grass species. This community dependence on plant host species correlated with differences in grass species traits, which became more defined under drought stress conditions, suggesting symbiotic evolutionary relationships between plant hosts and their associated microbial community. Further understanding these strategies and the functions microbes provide to plants will help us utilize microbes to promote agricultural and ecosystem productivity in the future. IMPORTANCE Globally important grassland ecosystems are at risk of degradation due to poor management practices compounded by predicted increases in severity and duration of drought over the next century. Finding new ways to support grassland productivity is critical to maintaining their ecological and agricultural benefits. Discerning how grassland microbial communities change in response to climate stress will help us understand how plant-microbe relationships may be useful to sustainably support grasslands in the future. In this study, phyllosphere community diversity and composition was significantly altered under drought conditions. The significance of our research is demonstrating how severe climate stress reduces bacterial community diversity, which previously was directly associated with decreased plant productivity. These findings guide future questions about functional plant-microbe interactions under stress conditions, greatly enhancing our understanding of how bacteria can increase food security by promoting grassland growth and resilience.

Experimentally altered rainfall regimes and host root traits affect grassland arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Coline Deveautour ◽  
Suzanne Donn ◽  
Sally Power ◽  
Kirk Barnett ◽  
Jeff Powell
Keyword(s):  
Fungal Community ◽  
Community Assembly ◽  
Root Length ◽  
Specific Root Length ◽  
Root Traits ◽  
Arbuscular Mycorrhizal ◽  
Fungal Communities ◽  
Rainfall Regime ◽  
Precipitation Regimes ◽  
Rainfall Regimes

Future climate scenarios predict changes in rainfall regimes. These changes are expected to affect plants via effects on the expression of root traits associated with water and nutrient uptake. Associated microorganisms may also respond to these new precipitation regimes, either directly in response to changes in the soil environment or indirectly in response to altered root trait expression. We characterised arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal communities in an Australian grassland exposed to experimentally altered rainfall regimes. We used Illumina sequencing to assess the responses of AM fungal communities associated with four plant species sampled in different watering treatments and evaluated the extent to which shifts were associated with changes in root traits. We observed that altered rainfall regimes affected the composition but not the richness of the AM fungal communities, and we found distinctive communities in the increased rainfall treatment. We found no evidence of altered rainfall regime effects via changes in host physiology because none of the studied traits were affected by changes in rainfall. However, specific root length was observed to correlate with AM fungal richness, while concentrations of phosphorus and calcium in root tissue and the proportion of root length allocated to fine roots were correlated to community composition. Our study provides evidence that climate change and its effects on rainfall may influence AM fungal community assembly, as do plant traits related to plant nutrition and water uptake. We did not find evidence that host responses to altered rainfall drive AM fungal community assembly in this grassland ecosystem.

scholarly journals Endophytic Fungal Community of Huperzia serrata: Diversity and Relevance to the Production of Huperzine A by the Plant Host

Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 892
Author(s):  
Lingli Cui ◽  
Hamza Armghan Noushahi ◽  
Yipeng Zhang ◽  
Jinxin Liu ◽  
Andreea Cosoveanu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Fungal Community ◽  
Slow Growth ◽  
Specific Treatment ◽  
Huperzine A ◽  
Ionization Mass ◽  
Correlation Index ◽  
Plant Host ◽  
Huperzia Serrata

As the population ages globally, there seem to be more people with Alzheimer’s disease. Unfortunately, there is currently no specific treatment for the disease. At present, Huperzine A (HupA) is one of the best drugs used for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and has been used in clinical trials for several years in China. HupA was first separated from Huperzia serrata, a traditional medicinal herb that is used to cure fever, contusions, strains, hematuria, schizophrenia, and snakebite for several hundreds of years in China, and has been confirmed to have acetylcholinesterase inhibitory activity. With the very slow growth of H. serrata, resources are becoming too scarce to meet the need for clinical treatment. Some endophytic fungal strains that produce HupA were isolated from H. serrate in previous studies. In this article, the diversity of the endophytic fungal community within H. serrata was observed and the relevance to the production of HupA by the host plant was further analyzed. A total of 1167 strains were obtained from the leaves of H. serrata followed by the stems (1045) and roots (824). The richness as well as diversity of endophytic fungi within the leaf and stem were higher than in the root. The endophytic fungal community was similar within stems as well as in leaves at all taxonomic levels. The 11 genera (Derxomyces, Lophiostoma, Cyphellophora, Devriesia, Serendipita, Kurtzmanomyces, Mycosphaerella, Conoideocrella, Brevicellicium, Piskurozyma, and Trichomerium) were positively correlated with HupA content. The correlation index of Derxomyces with HupA contents displayed the highest value (CI = 0.92), whereas Trichomerium showed the lowest value (CI = 0.02). Through electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS), it was confirmed that the HS7-1 strain could produce HupA and the total alkaloid concentration was 3.7 ug/g. This study will enable us to screen and isolate the strain that can produce HupA and to figure out the correlation between endophytic fungal diversity with HupA content in different plant organs. This can provide new insights into the screening of strains that can produce HupA more effectively.

Manipulation of Environmental Stress Towards Lutein Production in Chlorella fusca Cell Culture

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 251-257
Author(s):  
Rashidi Othman ◽  
Norazian Mohd. Hassan   ◽  
Ainaa Eliah Abu Bakar ◽  
Nur Hidayah Noh   ◽  
Nurrulhidayah Ahmad Fadzillah   ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cell Culture ◽  
Drought Stress ◽  
Environmental Stress ◽  
Environmental Variables ◽  
Metabolic Flux ◽  
Experimental System ◽  
Carotenoid Biosynthesis ◽  
Chlorella Fusca ◽  
Carotenoid Accumulation ◽  
Media Formulation

All carotenoids originate from a single, common precursor, phytoene. The colour of carotenoids is determinedby desaturation, isomerization, cyclization, hydroxylation and epoxidation of the 40-carbon phytoene. The conjugated double-bond structure and nature of end ring groups confer on the carotenoids properties such as colour and antioxidant activity. Algae may become major sources of carotenoids but the extent of environmental stress and genetic influences on algae carotenoid biosynthesis are poorly understood. Carotenoid biosynthesis can be influenced by many aspects and is liable to geometric isomerization with the existence of oxygen, light and heat which affect the colour degradation and oxidation. Therefore, in this study carotenoid biogenesis is investigated in cell culture of Chlorella fusca as a potential model system for rapid initiation, and extraction of carotenoids by providing stringent control of genetic, developmental and environmental factors. The value of this experimental system for investigating key factors controlling the carotenoid accumulation is then tested by assessing the effects of environmental variables, such as drought stress, light intensity, nutrient strength and media formulation on carotenoid accumulation. Our findings revealed that the conversion of violaxanthin to lutein is due to irradiance stress condition, nutrient strength as well as drought stress. As a result, manipulation of environmental variables will up-regulate lutein concentration. This reaction will restrict the supply of precursors for ABA biosynthesis and the algae cell culture responds by increasing carotenogenic metabolic flux to compensate for this restriction. In conclusion, selecting the appropriate algae species for the appropriate environmental conditions is not only important for yield production, but also for nutritional value quality of carotenoid.

scholarly journals Global diversity and biogeography of the Zostera marina mycobiome

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cassandra L. Ettinger ◽  
Laura E. Vann ◽  
Jonathan A. Eisen
Keyword(s):  
Fungal Community ◽  
Community Assembly ◽  
Zostera Marina ◽  
High Throughput Sequencing ◽  
Marine Fungi ◽  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Fungal Community Composition ◽  
Functional Roles ◽  
Functional Guilds ◽  
The Many

Seagrasses are marine flowering plants that provide critical ecosystem services in coastal environments worldwide. Marine fungi are often overlooked in microbiome and seagrass studies, despite terrestrial fungi having critical functional roles as decomposers, pathogens or endophytes in global ecosystems. Here we characterize the distribution of fungi associated with the seagrass, Zostera marina, using leaves, roots, and rhizosphere sediment from 16 locations across its full biogeographic range. Using high throughput sequencing of the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region and 18S ribosomal RNA gene, we first measured fungal community composition and diversity. We then tested hypotheses of neutral community assembly theory and the degree to which deviations suggested amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) were plant-selected or dispersal-limited. Finally, we identified a core mycobiome and investigated the global distribution of differentially abundant ASVs. We found that the fungal community is significantly different between sites and that the leaf mycobiome follows a weak, but significant pattern of distance decay in the Pacific Ocean. Generally, there was evidence for both deterministic and stochastic factors contributing to community assembly of the mycobiome, with most taxa assembling through stochastic processes. The Z. marina core leaf and root mycobiomes were dominated by unclassified Sordariomycetes spp., unclassified Chytridiomycota lineages (including Lobulomycetaceae spp.), unclassified Capnodiales spp. and Saccharomyces sp. It is clear from the many unclassified fungal ASVs and fungal functional guilds, that knowledge of marine fungi is still rudimentary. Further studies characterizing seagrass-associated fungi are needed to understand the roles of these microorganisms generally and when associated with seagrasses. Importance Fungi have important functional roles when associated with land plants, yet very little is known about the roles of fungi associated with marine plants, like seagrasses. In this study, we report the results of a global effort to characterize the fungi associated with the seagrass, Zostera marina, across its full biogeographic range. Although we defined a putative global core fungal community, it is apparent from the many fungal sequences and predicted functional guilds that had no matches to existing databases, that general knowledge of seagrass-associated fungi and marine fungi generally is lacking. This work serves as an important foundational step towards future work investigating the functional ramifications of fungi in the marine ecosystem.

scholarly journals Deterministic Selection Dominates Microbial Community Assembly in Termite Mounds Across a Large Spatial Area

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qing-Lin Chen ◽  
Hang-Wei Hu ◽  
Zhen-Zhen Yan ◽  
Chao-Yu Li ◽  
Bao-Anh Thi Nguyen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Community ◽  
Stochastic Processes ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Fungal Community ◽  
Community Assembly ◽  
Distance Decay ◽  
Termite Mounds ◽  
Deterministic Processes ◽  
Microbial Community Assembly

Abstract Background: Termites are ubiquitous insects in tropical and subtropical habitats, where they construct massive mounds from soil, their saliva and excreta. Termite mounds harbor an enormous amount of microbial inhabitants, which regulate multiple ecosystem functions such as mitigating methane emissions and increasing ecosystem resistance to climate change. However, we lack a mechanistic understanding about the role of termite mounds in modulating the microbial community assembly processes, which are essential to unravel the biological interactions of soil fauna and microorganisms, the major components of soil food webs. We conducted a large-scale survey across a >1500 km transect in northern Australia to investigate biogeographical patterns of bacterial and fungal community in 134 termite mounds and the relative importance of deterministic versus stochastic processes in microbial community assembly. Results: Microbial alpha (number of phylotypes) and beta (changes in bacterial and fungal community composition) significantly differed between termite mounds and surrounding soils. Microbial communities in termite mounds exhibited a significant distance-decay pattern, and fungal communities had a stronger distance-decay relationship (slope = -1.91) than bacteria (slope = -0.21). Based on the neutral community model (fitness < 0.7) and normalized stochasticity ratio index (NST) with a value below the 50% boundary point, deterministic selection, rather than stochastic forces, predominated the microbial community assembly in termite mounds. Deterministic processes exhibited significantly weaker impacts on bacteria (NST = 45.23%) than on fungi (NST = 33.72%), probably due to the wider habitat niche breadth and higher potential migration rate of bacteria. The abundance of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) was negatively correlated with bacterial/fungal biomass ratios, indicating that ARG content might be an important biotic factor that drove the biogeographic pattern of microbial communities in termite mounds. Conclusions: Deterministic processes play a more important role than stochastic processes in shaping the microbial community assembly in termite mounds, an unique habitat ubiquitously distributed in tropical and subtropical ecosystems. An improved understanding of the biogeographic patterns of microorganisms in termite mounds is crucial to decipher the role of soil faunal activities in shaping microbial community assembly, with implications for their mediated ecosystems functions and services.

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