Host Genotype Shapes the Foliar Fungal Microbiome of Balsam Poplar (Populus balsamifera)

Abstract

Foliar fungal communities of plants are diverse and ubiquitous. In grasses endophytes may increase host fitness; in trees, their ecological roles are poorly understood. We investigated whether the genotype of the host tree influences community structure of foliar fungi. We sampled leaves from genotyped balsam poplars from across the species' range, and applied 454 amplicon sequencing to characterize foliar fungal communities. At the time of the sampling the poplars had been growing in a common garden for two years. We found diverse fungal communities associated with the poplar leaves. Linear discriminant analysis and generalized linear models showed that host genotypes had a structuring effect on the composition of foliar fungal communities. The observed patterns may be explained by a filtering mechanism which allows the trees to selectively recruit fungal strains from the environment. Alternatively, host genotype-specific fungal communities may be present in the tree systemically, and persist in the host even after two clonal reproductions. Both scenarios are consistent with host tree adaptation to specific foliar fungal communities and suggest that there is a functional basis for the strong biotic interaction.

Description

© 2013 Bálint et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Keywords

Leaves, Fungal Structure, Poplars, Fungi, Community Structure, Ascomycetes, Phylogenetic Analysis, Community Ecology

Citation

Bálint M, Tiffin P, Hallström B, O’Hara RB, Olson MS, Fankhauser JD, et al. (2013) Host Genotype Shapes the Foliar Fungal Microbiome of Balsam Poplar (Populus balsamifera). PLoS ONE 8(1): e53987. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0053987

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