High Specificity Of A Rare Terrestrial Orchid Toward A Rare Fungus Within The North American Tallgrass Prairie

Publication date: Available online 4 October 2019Source: Fungal BiologyAuthor(s): Jaspreet Kaur, Lela Andrews, Jyotsna SharmaAbstractThe Orchidaceae are globally distributed and represent a diverse lineage of obligate mycotrophic plants. Given their dependence upon specific fungi for seed germination or plant development, composition of soil fungal communities is expected to influence the distribution and persistence of orchid species though simultaneous characterization of orchid mycorrhizal fungal (OMF) communities in roots and in soil is rarely reported. To explain the OMF co-distributions in orchid roots, orchid occupied and bulk soil, we characterized the OMF communities of a rare orchid Platanthera praeclara over two to three years across its natural distribution within the North American tallgrass prairie by using location, host population size, edaphic characteristics, and host phenological stage as the explanatory predictors. Sequences from roots revealed 24 Ceratobasidiaceae and 7 Tulasnellaceae operational taxonomic units (OTUs) though the orchid exhibited high spatial and temporal specificity toward a single Ceratobasidiaceae OTU. This specificity was strongly stable across populations with different sizes and phenological stages. Root-associated OTUs were primarily restricted to the orchid-occupied sites while being infrequent in uninhabited or bulk soil. Variation in soil OMF assemblies were affected most by soil moisture, magnesium, manganese, and clay. In this...

Source: Fungal Biology - October 5, 2019 Category: Biology Source Type: research