Abstract
Recent microbiomic research of agricultural habitats has highlighted tremendous microbial biodiversity associated with such ecosystems. Data generated in vineyards have furthermore highlighted significant regional differences in vineyard biodiversity, hinting at the possibility that such differences might be responsible for regional differences in wine style and character, a hypothesis referred to as “microbial terroir.” The current study further contributes to this body of work by comparing the mycobiome associated with South African (SA) Cabernet Sauvignon grapes in three neighboring vineyards that employ different agronomic approaches, and comparing the outcome with similar data sets from Californian vineyards. The aim of this study was to fully characterize the mycobiomes associated with the grapes from these vineyards. The data revealed approximately 10 times more fungal diversity than what is typically retrieved from culture-based studies. The Biodynamic vineyard was found to harbor a more diverse fungal community (H = 2.6) than the conventional (H = 2.1) and integrated (H = 1.8) vineyards. The data show that ascomycota are the most abundant phylum in the three vineyards, with Aureobasidium pullulans and its close relative Kabatiella microsticta being the most dominant fungi. This is the first report to reveal a high incidence of K. microsticta in the grape/wine ecosystem. Different common wine yeast species, such as Metschnikowia pulcherrima and Starmerella bacillaris dominated the mycobiome in the three vineyards. The data show that the filamentous fungi are the most abundant community in grape must although they are not regarded as relevant during wine fermentation. Comparison of metagenomic datasets from the three SA vineyards and previously published data from Californian vineyards revealed only 25% of the fungi in the SA dataset was also present in the Californian dataset, with greater variation evident amongst ubiquitous epiphytic fungi.
Highlights
Vitis vinifera L. is an economically important crop plant that has been cultivated since ancient times
Data derived from culture dependent microbiological analysis suggested that the BD vineyard had a more diverse fungal community than the CONV and integrated (IPW) vineyard (Setati et al, 2012)
analysis of variance (ANOVA) analysis performed on the presence/absence transformed data showed that the community in the three vineyards was significantly different (p = 0.025)
Summary
Vitis vinifera L. is an economically important crop plant that has been cultivated since ancient times. The fungal population comprises endophytic and epiphytic communities that may be pathogenic, neutral, or beneficial to the host (Pancher et al, 2012; Martins et al, 2014). Many studies employing culture-dependent and culture-independent approaches have shown that the grape berry endosphere is mainly colonized by ascomycetous filamentous fungi of the genera Alternaria, Botryotinia, Epicoccum, Davidiella, Neofusicoccum, and Cladosporium (Martini et al, 2009; Gonzalez and Tello, 2011). The epiphytic fungal community comprises saprophytic filamentous fungi of the genera Aspergillus, Penicillium, Rhizopus, and obligate parasites including Erysiphe necator and Plamospara viticola, as well as oxidative and fermentative yeasts that influence wine fermentation processes and contribute to the aroma and flavor of wine (Diguta et al, 2011; Rousseaux et al, 2014). The presence of other yeast genera depends upon various factors including vineyard practices (Setati et al, 2012; Martins et al, 2014), disease pressure and the level of damage of the grapes (Barata et al, 2012)
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