Endophytic diversity and community composition of Cirsium arvense tissues over a growing season
2025
Kentjens, Wendy | Casonato, Seona | Kaiser, Clive
Cirsium arvense is a troublesome weed and biocontrol is warranted. Currently, fungal biocontrol agents perform inconsistently, and endophytes may be contributing to this. This research investigates the endophytic communities in leaf, stem, and root tissue of C. arvense in the Lincoln area of New Zealand and their seasonal dynamics. Samples were collected in spring, summer, and autumn. They were cultured and sorted by morphotype before identification to genus level was determined with Sanger sequencing. Data was analysed with the software R and the diversity and community composition of endophytic communities were determined. From this study it was evident that endophytic diversity in leaf tissue increases over the growing season from a true Shannon diversity of 3.4 in November 2021 to 7.5 in April 2022. The leaf communities were also highly variable in their composition with Alternaria, Cladosporium, Epicoccum, and Stemphylium increasing over the season and Aureobasidium decreasing. In roots, endophytic diversity was lowest in February, which may be related to the higher temperatures in summer. The composition of these communities started to change in autumn with Ceratobasidium, Cladosporium, Trichoderma, and Aspergillus increasing in abundance. Diversity and composition of fungal communities in stems remained consistent across seasons. This may indicate that applying a fungal biocontrol agent to stems may be the best approach to control this weed. This study elucidated seasonal dynamics of endophytic communities within C. arvense tissues and highlighted differences between tissues which increases our understanding of these communities and may help to develop more effective biocontrol of this plant
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Эту запись предоставил Lincoln University