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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbe and Virus Interactions with Plants
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1489900
This article is part of the Research Topic Forest Microbiome: Dynamics and Interactions in the Anthropocene Era View all 16 articles

Microbial Communities in the Phyllosphere and Endosphere of Norway Spruce Under Attack by Heterobasidion

Provisionally accepted
Wenjing Meng Wenjing Meng 1Zilan Wen Zilan Wen 1Risto Kasanen Risto Kasanen 1Hui Sun Hui Sun 2Fred O Asiegbu Fred O Asiegbu 1*
  • 1 University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
  • 2 Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Heterobasidion annosum species complex has been regarded as the most destructive disease agent of conifer trees in boreal forests. Tree microbiome can regulate the plant-pathogen interactions by influencing both host resistance and pathogen virulence. Such information would help to improve the future health of forests and explore strategies to enhance ecosystem stability. In this study, using next generation sequencing technology (NGS), we investigated the microbial community in different tree regions (needles, upper stem and lower stem) of Norway spruce with and without wood decay symptoms. The primary purpose was to uncover signature characteristic microbiome harbored by asymptomatic trees compared to diseased trees. Additionally, the study was to explore the inter-kingdom and intra-kingdom interactions in microbiome (bacteria & fungi) of symptomatic versus asymptomatic trees. The results showed that in upper stem, species richness (Chao1) of fungi and bacteria were both higher in asymptomatic trees than symptomatic trees (P < 0.05). Compared to symptomatic trees, asymptomatic trees harbored a higher abundance of Actinobacteriota, bacterial genera of Methylocella, Conexibacter, Jatrophihabitans, and fungal genera of Mollisia. Fungal communities from the same anatomic region differed between the symptomatic and asymptomatic trees. Bacterial communities from the two stem regions were also distinct between the symptomatic and asymptomatic trees. The symptomatic trees possessed a less stable microbial network with more positive correlations compared to the asymptomatic trees. In the lower stem, at intra-kingdom level, the distribution of correlation numbers was more even in the bacterial network compared to the fungal network. In conclusion, the Heterobasidion attack decreased the microbial community species richness and shifted the community structure and functional structure to varying degrees. The microbial network was enlarged and became more unstable at both inter-kingdom and intra-kingdom level due to the Heterobasidion infection.

    Keywords: microbial community structure, Heterobasidion, Network analysis, microbial interaction, Microbial community diversity

    Received: 02 Sep 2024; Accepted: 19 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Meng, Wen, Kasanen, Sun and Asiegbu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Fred O Asiegbu, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

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