Changes In Fungal Community Structure Research Articles

Impact of lime, nitrogen and plant species on fungal community structure in grassland microcosms

A microcosm-based approach was used to study impacts of plant and chemical factors on the fungal community structure of an upland acidic grassland soil. Seven plant species typical of both unimproved and fertilized grasslands were either left unamended or treated with lime, nitrogen or lime plus nitrogen. Fungal community structure was assessed by a molecular approach, fungal automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis (FARISA), while fungal biomass was estimated by measuring soil ergosterol content. Addition of nitrogen (with or without lime) had the largest effect, decreasing soil pH, fungal biomass and fungal ribotype number, but there was little corresponding change in fungal community structure. Although different plant species were associated with some changes in fungal biomass, this did not result in significant differences in fungal community structure between plant species. Addition of lime alone caused no changes in fungal biomass, ribotype number or community structure. Overall, fungal community structure appeared to be more significantly affected through interactions between plant species and chemical treatments, as opposed to being directly affected by changes in individual improvement factors. These results were in contrast to those found for the bacterial communities of the same soils, which changed substantially in response to chemical (lime and nitrogen) additions.

Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of ribosomal RNA genes to assess changes in fungal community structure in soils

Monitoring the structure and dynamics of fungal communities in soils under agricultural and environmental disturbances is currently a challenge. In this study, a terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) fingerprinting method was developed for the rapid comparison of fungal community structures. The terminal restriction fragment polymorphism of different regions of the small-subunit (SSU) ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene was simulated by sequence comparison using 10 restriction enzymes, and analyzed among three different soils using fungal-specific primers. Polymerase chain reaction amplification of the 3′ end of the SSU rRNA gene with the primer nu-SSU-0817-5′ and with the fluorescently labelled primer nu-SSU-1536-3′, and digestion of the amplicons with AluI and MboI were found to be optimal and were used in a standardized T-RFLP procedure. Both the number and the intensity of terminal restriction fragments detected by capillary gel electrophoresis were integrated in correspondence analyses. Three soils with contrasting physicochemical properties were differentiated according to the structure of their fungal communities. Assessment of the impact on the fungal community structure of the amendment of two soils with compost or manure confirmed the reproducibility and the sensitivity of the method. Shifts in the community structure were detected between non-amended and amended soil samples. In both soils, the shift differed with the organic amendment applied. In addition, the fungal community structures of the two soils were affected in a different way by the same organic amendment. The fingerprinting method provides a rapid tool to investigate the effect of various perturbations on the fungal communities in soils.

Evaluation of Argemone mexicana for Control of Root‐Infecting Fungi in Tomato

Argemone mexicana L. (Papaveraceae), a tropical annual weed, is known to be phytotoxic to many crop species. This study was designed to examine the possible impact of A. mexicana on root‐infecting fungi, changes in fungal community structure and the growth of tomato. A. mexicana decaying shoots in soil provided a marked decrease in the infectivity of Fusarium solani and Rhizoctonia solani but Macrophomina phaseolina remained unaffected. Plant height and shoot growth of tomato plants increased markedly though high concentration of A. mexicana (5% w/w) was deleterious to tomato plants. General species diversity of soil fungal communities increased in the amended soils over the controls and greater increase in diversity occurred at higher concentrations of decaying A. mexicana. Likewise, equitability and richness components of diversity increased in treatments compared to controls but declined with increasing sampling period. Aspergillus nidulans, Cephaliophora irregularis, Drechslera halodes, Paecilomyces lilacinus and Trichoderma viride were isolated exclusively from the amended soils. Aqueous extract of A. mexicana when applied in soil greatly suppressed all three of the above root‐infecting fungi, and at lower concentration actually enhanced plant growth. The influence of different levels of N‐fertilization with NH4NO3 on the modification of the effect of decaying A. mexicana on root‐infecting fungi was also investigated. N‐fertilization to some extent alleviated the phytotoxicity to tomato plants while suppressing the root‐infecting fungi. A. mexicana in conjunction with Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a plant growth‐promoting rhizobacterium, significantly suppressed root‐infecting fungi with concomitant increase in plant growth. Whereas P. aeruginosa was reisolated from the rhizosphere and inner root tissues of tomato, its population slightly declined in the amended soil but not to an extent that could reduce the biocontrol and growth promoting potential of the bacterium.