Abstract
The variation of phyllosphere bacterial and fungal communities along elevation gradients may provide a potential link with temperature, which corresponds to an elevation over short geographic distances. At the same time, the plant growth stage is also an important factor affecting phyllosphere microorganisms. Understanding microbiological diversity over changes in elevation and among plant growth stages is important for developing crop growth ecological theories. Thus, we investigated variations in the composition of the rice phyllosphere bacterial and fungal communities at five sites along an elevation gradient from 580 to 980 m above sea level (asl) in the Ziquejie Mountain at the seedling, heading, and mature stages, using high-throughput Illumina sequencing methods. The results revealed that the dominant bacterial phyla were Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Bacteroidetes, and the dominant fungal phyla were Ascomycota and Basidiomycota, which varied significantly at different elevation sites and growth stages. Elevation had a greater effect on the α diversity of phyllosphere bacteria than on that phyllosphere fungi. Meanwhile, the growth stage had a great effect on the α diversity of both phyllosphere bacteria and fungi. Our results also showed that the composition of bacterial and fungal communities varied significantly along elevation within the different growth stages, in terms of both changes in the relative abundance of species, and that the variations in bacterial and fungal composition were well correlated with variations in the average elevation. A total of 18 bacterial and 24 fungal genera were significantly correlated with elevational gradient, displaying large differences at the various growth stages. Soluble protein (SP) shared a strong positive correlation with bacterial and fungal communities (p < 0.05) and had a strong significant negative correlation with Serratia, Passalora, unclassified_Trichosphaeriales, and antioxidant enzymes (R > 0.5, p < 0.05), and significant positive correlation with the fungal genera Xylaria, Gibberella, and Penicillium (R > 0.5, p < 0.05). Therefore, it suggests that elevation and growth stage might alter both the diversity and abundance of phyllosphere bacterial and fungal populations.
Highlights
The phyllosphere refers to aboveground plant surfaces as a habitat for plant associated microbes, including bacteria, fungi, protists, and viruses (Vorholt, 2012; Bringel and Couée, 2015)
The leaves of plants present an area that is available for potential microbial colonization and growth, and the microbial populations of this phyllosphere can be abundant and taxonomically diverse (Bodenhausen et al, 2014)
The variation of phyllosphere bacterial communities along elevational gradients may provide a potential link with temperature, which corresponds to elevation gradients over short geographic distances
Summary
The phyllosphere refers to aboveground plant surfaces as a habitat for plant associated microbes, including bacteria, fungi, protists, and viruses (Vorholt, 2012; Bringel and Couée, 2015). Phyllosphere microbial communities can affect global carbon and nitrogen cycles (Whipps et al, 2008). Individuals within this community may be beneficial, pathogenic, or antagonistic for the host plant and can strongly affect plant health (Vorholt, 2012; Brader et al, 2017; Matsumoto et al, 2021). Cordier et al (2012a) showed that the composition of fungal assemblages varied significantly over an elevational gradient, suggesting that climate warming might alter both the diversity and abundance of phyllosphere fungal species. Elevation, which is significantly related to mean annual temperature, is known to affect the community composition of phyllosphere fungi (Qian et al, 2018). The potential responses of phyllosphere bacterial assemblages to elevational gradients have been much less thoroughly explored
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