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. 2021 Feb 10;10(2):138.
doi: 10.3390/biology10020138.

Rhizoplane and Rhizosphere Fungal Communities of Geographically Isolated Korean Bellflower (Campanula takesimana Nakai)

Jong Myong Park  1 , Bomi Kim  2 , Young-Chang Cho  3 , Byoung-Hee Lee  4 , Ji Won Hong  5 , Young-Hyun You  2
Affiliations

Rhizoplane and Rhizosphere Fungal Communities of Geographically Isolated Korean Bellflower (Campanula takesimana Nakai)

Jong Myong Park et al. Biology (Basel). .

Abstract

Fungal communities in the rhizoplane (RP) and rhizosphere (RS) of geographically isolated C. takesimana habitats in different environments such as oceanic (Seodo, the Dokdo Islands), coastline (Sadong, Ulleungdo Island), and inland (Taeha, Ulleungdo Island) regions were analyzed by MiSeq sequencing. In total, 1279 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were obtained and they were further classified into 185 genera belonging to five phyla. The total number of fungal taxa in the RP samples was lower than those in the RS samples in all the sampled locations, providing an indication of the existence of a certain level of the selective pressures from the host plant. The richness of the RP in the Dokdo Islands was higher than that of Ulleungdo Island, but the richness of the RS in the Dokdo Islands was lower than that of Ulleungdo Island. These results suggest evidence for strong effects of a harsh geo-climate on the RP and RS fungal diversities in the Dokdo Islands. Additionally, a total of 82 fungal genera were identified in all three RP samples and 63 genera (77%) were uniquely found in each of the geographical regions and 43 genera (52.4%) showed high dependency on the C. takesimana vegetation. It was found that the genus Mortierella was the most dominant taxon in all the samples. The geo-ecological isolation of the Korean bellflower may have caused unique formation of the RP and RS fungal communities in the natural habitats.

Keywords: Campanula takesimana; Korean bellflower; Mortierella; geographical segregation; rhizoplane; rhizosphere.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Geographically segregated natural habitats of the Korean bellflowers. The map images were downloaded from the Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea (CHA) Portal Site (http://www.heritage.go.kr/heri/idx/index.do, accessed on 21 October 2020) and modified for this study.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Fungal phyla distribution in the rhizoplane (RP) and rhizosphere (RS) samples (unit: %).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Fungal diversity variation in the RP and RS samples.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Illumina MiSeq sequencing rarefaction curve for operational taxonomic units (OTUs) from each site. OTUs were clustered at 3% dissimilarity using CD-HIT. The microbial community in the RP and the RS of Seodo, the Dokdo Islands (OTUs, 140/341; sequencing reads, 84,267/94,745), Sadong, coastline of Ulleungdo Island (OTUs, 154/389; sequencing reads, 95,395/117,939), and Taeha, inland of Ulleungdo Island (OTUs, 212/478; sequencing reads, 86,299/89,864), are shown.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Heatmap of the 50 major fungal genera, including Mortierella species, distributed around host plants in each geographically segregated environment with a hierarchical clustering.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Unique fungal genera distributed in the RP and RS in each geographically isolated region and their host dependency. Blue bars indicate host dependency and red bars indicate increased dominance ratio as physical distance is away from the RP towards to the RS. Each number indicates the relative percentage of each genus and the trend of dependency of each genus was calculated by the following equation: (RS − RP)/RP.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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