Temporal variations in root-associated fungal communities of Potaninia mongolica, an endangered relict shrub species in the semi-arid desert of Northwest China

Abstract

The semi-arid region of the Western Ordos plateau in Inner Mongolia, China, is home to a critically endangered shrub species, Potaninia mongolica, which originates from ancient Mediterranean regions. Root-associated microbiomes play important roles in plant nutrition, productivity, and resistance to environmental stress particularly in the harsh desert environment; however, the succession of root-associated fungi during the growth stages of P. mongolica is still unclear. This study aimed to examine root-associated fungal communities of this relict plant species across three seasons (spring, summer and autumn) using root sampling and Illumina Miseq sequencing of internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS 2) region to target fungi. The analysis detected 698 fungal OTUs in association with P. mongolica roots, and the fungal richness increased significantly from spring to summer and autumn. Eurotiales, Hypocreales, Chaetothyriales, Pleosporales, Helotiales, Agaricales and Xylariales were the dominant fungal orders. Fungal community composition was significantly different between the three seasons, and the fungal taxa at various levels showed biased distribution and preferences. Stochastic processes predominantly drove community assembly of fungi in spring while deterministic processes acted more in the later seasons. The findings revealed the temporal dynamics of root-associated fungal communities of P. mongolica, which may enhance our understanding of biodiversity and changes along with seasonal alteration in the desert, and predict the response of fungal community to future global changes.

Fungal diversities and community assembly processes show different biogeographical patterns in forest and grassland soil ecosystems

“…Another parameter that can impact fungal community assembly processes is plant communities through direct host-microbial interactions and rhizosphere effects ( Martínez-García et al, 2015 ) and indirect mediation of soil physicochemical properties ( Zak et al, 2003 ). The results of this study do not explain the impacts of abiotic factors on fungal community assemblies, but some studies showed that fungal community assemblies could be impacted by seasonal and successional variations ( Liu et al, 2021 ; Kang et al, 2022 ; Wang et al, 2022 ). Our study’s shortcomings accommodate the paucity of evidence of the soil edaphic parameters and the consideration of other environmental variables like diversity vegetation canopies.…”

Water and Carbon Dynamics, Ecosystem Stability of Forest and Grassland in Response to Climate Change

“…Soil fungi in forest are broadly classified into two functional groups: free-living saprotrophs and plant root symbiotic fungi (Bödeker et al, 2016). Fungi that live in symbiotic relationships with plant roots may do so through ectomycorrhizal (EcM) or other types of symbiosis, including arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) and ericoid mycorrhizal (ErM) (Hobbie and Högberg, 2012;Tedersoo et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2022). The differences among these three groups of mycorrhizal fungi are important because of their biogeochemical significance.…”

“…By contrast, AM fungi are much less capable of producing these enzymes, typically lacking the complement of enzymes that decompose organic matter (Saifuddin et al, 2021). Accordingly, AM plants are primarily responsible for absorbing inorganic N in exchange for carbon derived from plant photosynthesis (Johnson, 2010;Van der Heijden et al, 2015;Han et al, 2020;Babalola et al, 2022), whereas EcM and ErM plants typically obtain more organic N from soil (Wurzburger and Hendrick, 2009). Given that EcM and ErM fungi have broader enzymatic capabilities, they could compete directly with saprotrophs for organic substrates (Adamczyk et al, 2016).…”

“…Ecological measures such as "Grain for Green" and "Three North shelterbelts" have been implemented in the MRYR (Wei et al, 2018), resulting in a significant increase in vegetation coverage, which was directly reflected in the dynamic changes in NPP (Xin et al, 2007;Wang et al, 2009). Previous studies have mainly concentrated on the spatial and temporal distribution of NPP and its correlation with precipitation and temperature in the whole region of the Yellow River Basin (Wang et al, 2022;Xiao et al, 2022). Owing to the Yellow River basin flowing through a wide area, the complicated ecological environment and the obvious regional differences between the upper, middle, and lower reaches, it is difficult to study the NPP of the Yellow River basin as a whole to achieve accurate local implementation.…”

The effects of ectomycorrhizal and saprotropic fungi on soil nitrogen mineralization differ from those of arbuscular and ericoid mycorrhizal fungi on the eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

“…Soil fungi in forest are broadly classified into two functional groups: free-living saprotrophs and plant root symbiotic fungi ( Bödeker et al., 2016 ). Fungi that live in symbiotic relationships with plant roots may do so through ectomycorrhizal (EcM) or other types of symbiosis, including arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) and ericoid mycorrhizal (ErM) ( Hobbie and Högberg, 2012 ; Tedersoo et al., 2020 ; Wang et al., 2022 ). The differences among these three groups of mycorrhizal fungi are important because of their biogeochemical significance.…”