Fungi and Oomycetes in the Irrigation Water of Forest Nurseries

Adas Marčiulynas,Artūras Gedminas,Miglė Vaičiukynė,Audrius Menkis,Jūratė Lynikienė,Diana Marčiulynienė

doi:10.3390/f11040459

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to assess fungal and oomycete communities in the irrigation water of forest nurseries, focusing on plant pathogens in the hope of getting a better understanding of potential pathogenic microorganisms and spreading routes in forest nurseries. The study sites were at Anykščiai, Dubrava, Kretinga and Trakai state forest nurseries in Lithuania. For the collection of microbial samples, at each nursery five 100-L water samples were collected from the irrigation ponds and filtered. Following DNA isolation from the irrigation water filtrate samples, these were individually amplified using ITS rDNA as a marker and subjected to PacBio high-throughput sequencing. Clustering in the SCATA pipeline and the taxonomic classification of 24,006 high-quality reads showed the presence of 1286 non-singleton taxa. Among those, 895 were representing fungi and oomycetes. The detected fungi were 57.3% Ascomycota, 38.1% Basidiomycota, 3.1% Chytridiomycota, 0.8% Mucoromycota and 0.7% Oomycota. The most common fungi were Malassezia restricta E. Guého, J. Guillot & Midgley (20.1% of all high-quality fungal sequences), Pezizella discreta (P. Karst.) Dennis (10.8%) and Epicoccum nigrum Link (4.9%). The most common oomycetes were Phytopythium cf. citrinum (B. Paul) Abad, de Cock, Bala, Robideau, Lodhi & Lévesque (0.4%), Phytophthora gallica T. Jung & J. Nechwatal (0.05%) and Peronospora sp. 4248_322 (0.05%). The results demonstrated that the irrigation water used by forest nurseries was inhabited by a species-rich but largely site-specific communities of fungi. Plant pathogens were relatively rare, but, under suitable conditions, these can develop rapidly, spread efficiently through the irrigation system and be a threat to the production of high-quality tree seedlings.

Highlights

The production of high-quality tree seedlings in forest nurseries is of key importance for forestry.Historically, artificial reforestation, i.e., the replanting or sowing of forest reproductive materials, has constantly increased [1,2], and today about 30% of the European Union (EU) forests are artificially reforested [3]
For each forest nursery, information on geographical position, the total land area, the number of seedlings produced annually and the area of the water pond, which is used for seedling irrigation, is in Kretinga the water is taken from the dammed bog
Our results show that the richness of fungal taxa and the fungal community composition differed in water ponds of different forest nurseries

Summary

Introduction

The production of high-quality tree seedlings in forest nurseries is of key importance for forestry.Historically, artificial reforestation, i.e., the replanting or sowing of forest reproductive materials, has constantly increased [1,2], and today about 30% of the European Union (EU) forests are artificially reforested [3]. The production of high-quality tree seedlings in forest nurseries is of key importance for forestry. 30 million of forest tree seedlings are traded annually within the EU [2], the supply of healthy seedlings is a major challenge in order to prevent the spread and the introduction of fungal diseases to new areas [4]. Different abiotic and biotic factors may stress tree seedlings and predispose them to infections by pathogenic microorganisms [5]. A number of such pathogens are often air- or soil-borne, these can spread through the irrigation water [6,7,8]. The irrigation water can either be from natural

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