Meng Yiming, Zhang Qi, Shi Guoxi, Liu Yongjun, Du Guozhen, Feng Huyuan
Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Cell Activities and Stress Adaptations, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China.
College of Bioengineering and Biotechnology, Tianshui Normal University, Tianshui, China.
Front Microbiol. 2022 Aug 22;13:895533. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.895533. eCollection 2022.
The availability of limiting nutrients plays a crucial role in shaping communities of endophytes. Moreover, whether fungal endophytes are host-specific remains controversial. We hypothesized that in a harsh and nitrogen (N)-deficient area, diversity and community composition of foliar endophytic fungi (FEFs) varied substantially among plots with experimentally elevated levels of macronutrients, and thus, N availability, instead of host species identity, would have a greater influence in structuring fungal communities at different scales. We also expected an important subset of taxa shared among numerous host species and N gradients to form a community-wide core microbiome. We measured the leaf functional traits and community structures of FEFs of three commonly seen species in an alpine meadow nested with a long-term N fertilization experiment. We found that host plant identity was a powerful factor driving the endophytic fungal community in leaves, even in habitats where productivity was strongly limited by nitrogen ( < 0.001). We also found that within the same host, nitrogen was an important driving force for the composition of the endophytic fungi community ( < 0.05). In addition, the leaf carbon content was the most important functional trait that limited the diversity of endophytic fungi ( < 0.001). Finally, we documented a distinct core microbiome shared among our three focal species and N gradients.
限制性养分的可利用性在塑造内生菌群落方面起着关键作用。此外，真菌内生菌是否具有宿主特异性仍存在争议。我们假设，在一个恶劣且缺氮的地区，随着实验性提高大量养分水平，叶内生真菌（FEFs）的多样性和群落组成在不同样地间会有很大差异，因此，氮的可利用性而非宿主物种身份，在不同尺度上构建真菌群落时会有更大影响。我们还预期众多宿主物种和氮梯度间共享的一个重要分类单元子集能形成一个全群落核心微生物组。我们在一个嵌套了长期氮肥实验的高山草甸中测量了三种常见物种的叶功能性状和FEFs的群落结构。我们发现宿主植物身份是驱动叶片内生真菌群落的一个强大因素，即使在生产力受氮强烈限制的生境中也是如此（<0.001）。我们还发现，在同一宿主内，氮是内生真菌群落组成的一个重要驱动力（<0.05）。此外，叶片碳含量是限制内生真菌多样性的最重要功能性状（<0.001）。最后，我们记录了在我们的三个重点物种和氮梯度间共享的一个独特核心微生物组。
