Endogenous bacterial community structure of Pinus massoniana with differing resistance to pine wilt disease

Summary Pine wilt disease (PWD) is a devastating pine disease caused by Bursaphelenchus xylophilus and its main host in China is Pinus massoniana. The relationship between endophytic bacteria and disease resistance in P. massoniana remains unclear. In this paper, the leaves, roots, stems and treetops of different disease-resistant P. massoniana were studied as the research objective and Illumina MiSeq sequencing was used to analyse whether there were significant differences in the composition and diversity of endophytic bacterial communities between different disease-resistant P. massoniana. The results showed that at the genus level there were no obvious differences in the composition of the endophytic bacterial community of different disease-resistant P. massoniana in the leaves, but there were obvious differences in the roots, stems and treetops. The richness and diversity of endophytic bacteria in P. massoniana had no significant impact on its disease resistance, whilst the structure of endophytic bacterial community in stems and treetops may be related to its disease resistance.