Community composition of endophytic fungi in Acer truncatum and their role in decomposition

Abstract

The mycota and decomposing potential of endophytic fungi associated with Acer truncatum, a common tree in northern China, were investigated. The colonization rate of endophytic fungi was significantly higher in twigs (77%) than in leaves (11%). However, there was no significant difference in the colonization rates of endophytic fungi between lamina (9%) and midrib (14%) tissues. A total of 58 endophytic taxa were recovered using two isolation methods and these were identified based on morphology and ITS sequence data. High numbers of leaf endophytes were obtained in the method to determine decomposition of leaves by the natural endophyte community (35 taxa) as compared to disk fragment methodology (9 taxa). The weight loss in A. truncatum leaves decomposed by endophyte communities increased with incubation time; the weight loss was significantly higher at 20 weeks than at 3 and 8 weeks. Both common and rare endophytic taxa produced extracellular enzymes in vitro and showed different leaf decay abilities. Our results indicated that the composition and diversity of endophytic fungi obtained differed using two isolation methods. This study suggests that endophytic fungi play an important role in recycling of nutrients in natural ecosystems.

Community structure of endophytic fungi of four mangrove species in Southern China

“…Furthermore, we found that the colonisation rate of endophytic fungi was higher in twigs than in leaves in the four hosts. Similar results were reported in previous studies of mangrove plants (Pang et al 2008; Xing et al 2011) and non-mangrove plants (Fisher et al 1994; Wang and Guo 2007; Sun et al 2011). For example, Xing et al (2011) found that the colonisation rate of endophytic fungi was significantly higher in stem than in leaf in four mangrove Sonneratia species at the south coast of China.…”

“…For example, Phomopsis fungi were widely isolated from mangroves (Suryanarayanan et al 1998; Suryanarayanan and Kumaresan 2000; Pang et al 2008; Xing et al 2011; Xing and Guo 2011) and non-mangrove plants (Taylor et al 1999; Guo et al 2000, 2008; Cannon and Simmons 2002; Murali et al 2006; Sun et al 2011, 2012). In addition, Pestalotiopsis as generalist fungi were common mangrove endophytes and widely occurred on plants across Palmae, Rhizophoraceae, Planchonellae, and Podocarpaceae in China (Liu et al 2010a, 2012; Xing and Guo 2011; Gong et al 2014).…”

“…The relative abundance was calculated as the number of isolates of a taxon divided by the total number of isolates of all taxa. Relative frequency was calculated as the total number of plant tissue segments infected by fungi divided by the total number of plant segments incubated (Sun et al 2011). The importance value (IV) was calculated from the mean of relative frequency and relative abundance, indicated as a percentage (Horton and Bruns 2001; Wang et al 2010).…”

Metagenomic approach of associated fungi with <i>Megaplatypus mutatus</i> (Coleoptera: Platypodinae)

“…One sampled P. deltoides (Morse, AP1) tree achieved the highest abundance of C. radians, a member of Phylum Basidiomycota (91.8% of relative frequency), and the lowest abundance of members of the Phylum Ascomycota (8.2%). This fungus may have been present as an endophyte or a wood-decaying species prior to the insect attack (Eslyn and Lombard 1984;Sun et al 2011). The results obtained during this study complement the previous data reported by Ceriani-Nakamurakare et al (2016) representing the first comprehensive analyses on fungal communities associated to M. mutatus.…”

Isolation and Characterization of Endophytic Fungi from Bauhinia sp., Delonix regia and Crotalaria sp.

“…In the case of symbiotic association there is an increase in biomass as well as better development of aerial parts (Das et al, 2012). They are important components of the plant micro-ecosystem (Rodriguez et al, 2009;Zhang et al, 2006;Tan and Zhou, 2001) and are ubiquitous, colonize all plants and have been isolated from mosses (Davey and Currah, 2006), lichens (Li et al, 2007 a,b;Suryanarayanan et al, 2005) shrubs (Petrini et al, 1982), ferns (Swatzell et al, 1996), grasses (Muller and Krauss, 2005;Su et al, 2010), coniferous trees (Sun et al, 2011;Albrectsen et al, 2010;Mohamed et al, 2010). In the long co-evolution of the endophytes and their host plant, the endophytes have adapted themselves to the microenvironment by genetic variation including uptake of some plant DNA into their own genome.…”