Diversity and Communities of Fungal Endophytes from Four Pinus Species in Korea

Abstract

Fungal endophytes are ubiquitous in nature. They are known as potential sources of natural products, and possible agents for biocontrol attributing to their ability to produce a repertoire of bioactive compounds. In this study, we isolated fungal endophytes from three different tissues (needle, stem and root) of four Pinus species (Pinus densiflora, Pinus koraiensis, Pnus rigida, and Pinus thunbergii) across 18 sampling sites in Korea. A total number of 5872 culturable fungal endophytes were isolated using standard culturing techniques. Molecular identification based on the sequence analyses of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) or 28S ribosomal DNA revealed a total of 234 different fungal species. The isolated fungal endophytes belonged to Ascomycota (91.06%), Basidiomycota (5.95%) and Mucoromycota (2.97%), with 144 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and 88 different genera. In all sampling sites, the highest species richness (S) was observed in site 1T (51 OTUs) while the lowest was observed in site 4T (27 OTUs). In terms of diversity, as measured by Shannon diversity index (H’), the sampling site 2D (H′ = 3.216) showed the highest while the lowest H’ was observed in site 2K (H’ = 2.232). Species richness (S) in three different tissues revealed that root and needle tissues are highly colonized with fungal endophytes compared to stem tissue. No significant difference was observed in the diversity of endophytes in three different tissues. Among the four Pinus species, P. thunbergii exhibited the highest species richness and diversity of fungal endophytes. Our findings also revealed that the environmental factors have no significant impact in shaping the composition of the fungal endophytes. Furthermore, FUNGuild analysis revealed three major classifications of fungal endophytes based on trophic modes namely saprotrophs, symbiotrophs, and pathotrophs in four Pinus species, with high proportions of saprotrophs and pathothrops.

Analysis of endophyte diversity of two Gentiana plants species and the association with secondary metabolite

“…Numerous studies have reported that the dominant phyla of fungal and bacterial endophytes were ascomycota and proteobacteria in many plants [ 22 , 23 ]. At the genus level, dominant genera of fungal endophyte and their relative richness of two Gentiana samples existed difference, while dominant genera of endophytic bacteria was the same, these results were consistent with Soon et al [ 24 ], who reported that dominant genera of fungal endophytes was different in the four pinus species. This result may be due to diversity of the endophytes was influenced by plant species, parts, and growth stage [ 6 ].…”

Community composition and differential analysis of rhizosphere soil microorganism and endophytes in Schisandra sphenanthera Rehd. et Wils.

“…3). According to research found that most microbial community have little difference at phylum level, which is basically consistent with the results of this study, which fully demonstrated the similarity of microbes in larger taxonomic units (Rim et al, 2021;Sun et al, 2021). At present, endophytes can be isolated from various parts and organs of studied plants, such as root, stem, leaf, fruit, and seed, and the structure composition and abundance of endophytes will change with different plant varieties, parts, and development periods (Dong et al, 2018;Lv et al, 2021).…”

“…Endophytes, derived from the Greek "endon", are a class of fungi or bacteria that lives in various tissues and organs of healthy plants at one certain stage or at all stages of their life history, without causing substantial damage to the host plants (Kambach et al, 2021;Wani et al, 2015;Wijekoon and Quill, 2021). Endophytes include mutualistic symbiotic microorganisms, neutral symbiotic microorganisms, and pathogenic microorganisms lurking in the host (Jia et al, 2016;Rim et al, 2021). Several studies have shown that the diversity and community structures of endophytes are closely related to the species, growth stage, nutrition supply, living environment, and genotype of the host plants (Liu et al, 2019;Rim et al, 2021;Robinson et al, 2016).…”

“…Endophytes include mutualistic symbiotic microorganisms, neutral symbiotic microorganisms, and pathogenic microorganisms lurking in the host (Jia et al, 2016;Rim et al, 2021). Several studies have shown that the diversity and community structures of endophytes are closely related to the species, growth stage, nutrition supply, living environment, and genotype of the host plants (Liu et al, 2019;Rim et al, 2021;Robinson et al, 2016). Endophytes play a positive role in plant growth and development, pest control, plant resistance, bioremediation, and other aspects (Durand et al, 2021;Jauri et al, 2020).…”

Uso de la secuenciación de segunda generación (NGS) para descubrir la diversidad de hongos degradadores de la madera en los bosques Andino Patagónicos

“…Hemos identificado un mayor número de géneros de hongos degradadores en N. dombeyi que en N. pumilio. El efecto del hospedante en las comunidades de hongos ha sido informado como fuerte, bajo e incluso no significativo en diferentes estudios (Bahram et al, 2022;Küngas et al, 2020;Rim et al, 2021;U'Ren et al, 2019, respectivamente). La divergencia de las comunidades fúngicas de N. dombeyi y N. pumilio se ha discutido como un reflejo de las distribuciones altitudinales no adyacentes en el norte de la Patagonia, la disponibilidad de agua y la edad del rodal (Molina et al, 2020).…”