Analyses of the temporal dynamics of fungal communities colonizing the healthy wood tissues of esca leaf-symptomatic and asymptomatic vines.

Esca, a Grapevine Trunk Disease (GTD), is of major concern for viticulture worldwide. Our study compares the fungal communities that inhabit the wood tissues of vines that expressed or not foliar esca-symptoms. The trunk and rootstock tissues were apparently healthy, whether the 10 year-old plants were symptomatic or not. The only difference was in the cordon, which contained white rot, a typical form of esca, in 79% of symptomatic plants. Observations over a period of one year using a fingerprint method, Single Strand Conformation Polymorphism (SSCP), and the ITS-DNA sequencing of cultivable fungi, showed that shifts occurred in the fungal communities colonizing the healthy wood tissues. However, whatever the sampling time, spring, summer, autumn or winter, the fungi colonizing the healthy tissues of asymptomatic or symptomatic plants were not significantly different. Forty-eight genera were isolated, with species of Hypocreaceae and Botryosphaeriaceae being the most abundant species. Diverse fungal assemblages, made up of potentially plant-pathogenic and -protective fungi, colonized these non-necrotic tissues. Some fungi, possibly involved in GTD, inhabited the non-necrotic wood of young plants, but no increase in necrosis areas was observed over the one-year period.