A multiscale study of fungal endophyte communities of the foliar endosphere of native rubber trees in Eastern Amazon

Abstract

Hevea brasiliensis is a native hyperdiverse tree species in the Amazon basin with great economic importance since it produces the highest quality natural rubber. H. brasiliensis, in its natural habitat, may harbor fungal endophytes that help defend against phytopathogenic fungi. In this work, we investigated the fungal endophytic communities in two pristine areas in Eastern Amazon (Anavilhanas National Park – ANP and Caxiuanã National Forest – CNF) at different spatial scales: regional, local, individual (tree), and intra-individual (leaflet). Using a culture-based approach, 210 fungal endophytes were isolated from 240 sampling units and assigned to 46 distinct MOTUs based on sequencing of the nrITS DNA. The community compositions of the endophytomes are different at both regional and local scales, dominated by very few taxa and highly skewed toward rare taxa, with many endophytes infrequently isolated across hosts in sampled space. Colletotrichum sp. 1, a probably latent pathogen, was the most abundant endophytic putative species and was obtained from all individual host trees in both study areas. Although the second most abundant putative species differed between the two collection sites, Clonostachys sp. 1 and Trichoderma sp. 1, they are phylogenetically related (Hypocreales) mycoparasites. Thus, they probably exhibit the same ecological function in the foliar endosphere of rubber tree as antagonists of its fungal pathogens.

Exploring the Relationship Among Divergence Time and Coding and Non-coding Elements in the Shaping of Fungal Mitochondrial Genomes

“…T. harzianum HB324 was isolated by our research group from Hevea brasiliensis (rubber tree) leaves and our data have shown that this isolate can act as biocontrol agent against the phytopathogen Colletotrichum sp. (Fonseca et al, 2018). Despite the economic and ecological importance of this fungus, its mitochondrial genome has not been yet available.…”

Forest Tree Microbiomes and Associated Fungal Endophytes: Functional Roles and Impact on Forest Health

“…The composition of Class 3 endophyte species within the same host and different forests stands can be quite distinct [86,87]. Equally, the same endophytic species have been reported to occupy several and diverse plant hosts [86,[88][89][90][91][92].…”

“…In Pinaceae, the dominant endophytic fungal species documented belong to the classes Leotiomycetes, Dothideomycetes and Sordariomycetes [20,86,[128][129][130][131]. The frequency is extremely high in aerial parts of trees, but the studies have shown that for foliar endophytes, a relatively small number of endophyte species dominate the fungal communities [20,91,108,110,[132][133][134].…”

Clonostachys viticola sp. nov., a novel species isolated from Vitis vinifera

“…Due to its unspecific mycoparasitism activity, C. rosea has been widely studied as a biocontrol agent of several important fungal plant pathogens [1, 6]. In addition, this species, and others in the genus, are known to be symptomless colonizers (or endophytes) of various plants, including woody species [1, 22, 23].…”