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. 2015 Apr 20:5:9697.
doi: 10.1038/srep09697.

N2O production, a widespread trait in fungi

Koki Maeda  1 , Aymé Spor  2 , Véronique Edel-Hermann  2 , Cécile Heraud  2 , Marie-Christine Breuil  2 , Florian Bizouard  2 , Sakae Toyoda  3 , Naohiro Yoshida  4 , Christian Steinberg  2 , Laurent Philippot  2
Affiliations

N2O production, a widespread trait in fungi

Koki Maeda et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

N2O is a powerful greenhouse gas contributing both to global warming and ozone depletion. While fungi have been identified as a putative source of N2O, little is known about their production of this greenhouse gas. Here we investigated the N2O-producing ability of a collection of 207 fungal isolates. Seventy strains producing N2O in pure culture were identified. They were mostly species from the order Hypocreales order-particularly Fusarium oxysporum and Trichoderma spp.-and to a lesser extent species from the orders Eurotiales, Sordariales, and Chaetosphaeriales. The N2O (15)N site preference (SP) values of the fungal strains ranged from 15.8‰ to 36.7‰, and we observed a significant taxa effect, with Penicillium strains displaying lower SP values than the other fungal genera. Inoculation of 15 N2O-producing strains into pre-sterilized arable, forest and grassland soils confirmed the ability of the strains to produce N2O in soil with a significant strain-by-soil effect. The copper-containing nitrite reductase gene (nirK) was amplified from 45 N2O-producing strains, and its genetic variability showed a strong congruence with the ITS phylogeny, indicating vertical inheritance of this trait. Taken together, this comprehensive set of findings should enhance our knowledge of fungi as a source of N2O in the environment.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. N2O production by the positive fungi strains with (white) and without (black) 10% C2H2 in the headspace.
Error bars indicate the standard deviation (n = 3). Both strain names and MIAE numbers are indicated.
Figure 2
Figure 2. N2O production by 15 selected fungi strains inoculated in 3 different sterile soils.
NO2− was used as the electron acceptor. The strains were incubated for 7 days, and headspace N2O concentration were measured 3 times (2, 4 and 7 days after NO2− addition). Code for the soils: Black circle: Sweden (Slogaryd), forest soil; grey triangle: France, arable soil; black rectangle: The Netherlands, grassland soil. Code for the fungi: a: Trichoderma harzianum (MIAE00042); b: Fusarium verticillioides (MIAE00306); c: Penicillium adametzii (MIAE01008); d: F. oxysporum f. sp. lini (MIAE00347); e: F. dimerum (MIAE00598); f: Metarhizium anisopliae (MIAE00953); g: Chaetomium sp. (MIAE00985); h: T. harzianum (anamorph) (MIAE01011); i: Leptosphaeria sp. (MIAE01060); j: T. tomentosum (MIAE00031); k: Fusarium sp. (MIAE01519); l: Clonostachys candelabrum (MIAE00941); m: Phialocephala sp. (MIAE00968); n: Colletotrichum coccodes (MIAE01515); o: Aspergillus sp. (MIAE01518);); p: No fungi control. The error bar represents the standard deviation (n = 3).
Figure 3
Figure 3. Neighbour-joining phylogenetic tree of nirK amino acid sequences constructed by Clustal W with 1000 bootstrap samplings.
Strain names in bold indicate the sequences obtained in this study. The numbers in parentheses indicate the number of the strains. Bootstrap values greater than 75% are indicated as black circles.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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