Abstract
The fungicides used to control diseases in cereal production can have adverse effects on non-target fungi, with possible consequences for plant health and productivity. This study examined fungicide effects on fungal communities on winter wheat leaves in two areas of Sweden. High-throughput 454 sequencing of the fungal ITS2 region yielded 235 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) at the species level from the 18 fields studied. It was found that commonly used fungicides had moderate but significant effect on fungal community composition in the wheat phyllosphere. The relative abundance of several saprotrophs was altered by fungicide use, while the effect on common wheat pathogens was mixed. The fungal community on wheat leaves consisted mainly of basidiomycete yeasts, saprotrophic ascomycetes and plant pathogens. A core set of six fungal OTUs representing saprotrophic species was identified. These were present across all fields, although overall the difference in OTU richness was large between the two areas studied.
Highlights
The phyllosphere, defined as the total above-ground parts of plants, provides a habitat for many microorganisms [1]
Community evenness was negatively correlated with fungicide use
Fungicides had no effect on operational taxonomic units (OTUs) richness on a per-plant basis, but there were fewer OTUs in the fungicide-treated sample pool
Summary
The phyllosphere, defined as the total above-ground parts of plants, provides a habitat for many microorganisms [1]. Some phyllosphere fungi are important pathogens, while others have antagonistic properties [3] or can influence the physiology of the plant [4]. Wheat is one of the most important crops worldwide and the wheat-associated fungal community was one of the first phyllosphere communities to be studied [5]. The wheat phyllosphere has been found to contain many basidiomycete yeasts such as Cryptococcus spp., Sporobolomyces roseus and filamentous saprotrophs, e.g. Cladosporium spp., Alternaria spp., Epicoccum spp., and plant pathogens [5,6,7,8]. Fungi can be present both as epiphytes and endophytes on wheat leaves. The main components of the fungal wheat leaf community differ in studies conducted at different sites and at different times and the mechanisms that lie behind the dynamics of fungal communities in the phyllosphere of agricultural crops are not well understood.
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