scholarly journals Short-Term Thinning Influences the Rhizosphere Fungal Community Assembly of Pinus massoniana by Altering the Understory Vegetation Diversity

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Size Liu ◽  
Haifeng Yin ◽  
Xiangjun Li ◽  
Xianwei Li ◽  
Chuan Fan ◽  
...  

Thinning can significantly promote forest productivity and ecological function. Rhizosphere fungi play an indispensable role in regulating nutrient cycling between plants and the environment, and their community composition can positively respond to anthropogenic disturbance. However, the initial effects of thinning on rhizosphere fungal community assembly have seldom been reported. In this research, we studied the alterations in the rhizosphere fungal communities of 29-year-old Pinus massoniana in East Sichuan 2 years after three different thinning intensity treatments. In addition, the responses of fungal community and functional group composition to alterations in understory vegetation and soil physiochemical properties were analyzed. Three thinning intensities were set, which were 0 (CK), 25% (LIT), and 50% (HIT), respectively. The results suggested that the richness index and Shannon index of understory vegetation increased significantly with increasing thinning intensity. The alpha diversity indices of rhizosphere fungal community and soil physiochemical properties did not show significant differences among the three treatments. The relative abundances of 17 fungal indicator species varied regularly with increasing thinning intensity, and most of them belong to Hypocreales and Eurotiales, indicating that these two orders were potential indicators for different thinning treatments. Rhizosphere fungal community assembly was determined by deterministic process, and it was driven by the diversity of understory vegetation in the initial stage of thinning. The Simpson index and Pielou index of herbs were useful measures of the main environmental factors driving the differentiation of fungal functional group composition. Based on network analysis, thinning resulted in distinct co-occurrence patterns of rhizosphere fungal functional groups. This research elucidates the initial role of thinning in rhizosphere fungal community assembly of P. massoniana and has practical significance for the functional restoration and protection of local forest ecosystem.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Coline Deveautour ◽  
Suzanne Donn ◽  
Sally Power ◽  
Kirk Barnett ◽  
Jeff Powell

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.


Minerals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 239
Author(s):  
Wei Wang ◽  
Long Liang ◽  
Yaoli Peng ◽  
Maria Holuszko

Micro-Fourier transform infrared (micro-FTIR) spectroscopy was used to correlate the surface chemistry of low rank coal with hydrophobicity. Six square areas without mineral impurities on low rank coal surfaces were selected as testing areas. A specially-designed methodology was applied to conduct micro-FTIR measurements and contact angle tests on the same testing area. A series of semi-quantitative functional group ratios derived from micro-FTIR spectra were correlated with contact angles, and the determination coefficients of linear regression were calculated and compared in order to identify the structure of the functional group ratios. Finally, two semi-quantitative ratios composed of aliphatic carbon hydrogen, aromatic carbon hydrogen and two different types of carbonyl groups were proposed as indicators of low rank coal hydrophobicity. This work provided a rapid way to predict low rank coal hydrophobicity through its functional group composition and helped us understand the hydrophobicity heterogeneity of low rank coal from the perspective of its surface chemistry.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. e74852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justus P. Deikumah ◽  
Clive A. McAlpine ◽  
Martine Maron

PLoS ONE ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. e0125678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanja Strecker ◽  
Romain L. Barnard ◽  
Pascal A. Niklaus ◽  
Michael Scherer-Lorenzen ◽  
Alexandra Weigelt ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Cassandra L. Ettinger ◽  
Laura E. Vann ◽  
Jonathan A. Eisen

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.


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