Endophytic Communities of Transgenic Poplar Were Determined by the Environment and Niche Rather Than by Transgenic Events

Yanbo Wang; Weixi Zhang; Changjun Ding; Bingyu Zhang; Qinjun Huang; Rongfeng Huang; Xiaohua Su

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2019.00588

Endophytic Communities of Transgenic Poplar Were Determined by the Environment and Niche Rather Than by Transgenic Events

Front Microbiol. 2019 Mar 26:10:588. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.00588. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Yanbo Wang^{1

2}, Weixi Zhang^{1

2}, Changjun Ding^{1

2}, Bingyu Zhang^{1

2}, Qinjun Huang^{1

2}, Rongfeng Huang³, Xiaohua Su^{1

2

4}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Tree Genetics and Breeding, Research Institute of Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China.
² Key Laboratory of Tree Breeding and Cultivation, National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Beijing, China.
³ Institute of Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁴ Co-Innovation Center for Sustainable Forestry in Southern China, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China.

Abstract

Microbial communities associated with plants represent key determinants of plant health, survival, and growth. However, a good understanding of the structural composition of the bacterial and fungal microbiome present in different plant tissues and growing environments, especially in transgenic woody plants, is required. In the present study, we hypothesized that environmental conditions, ecological niches, and transgenic events could influence the community structure of plant-associated microorganisms (bacterial and fungal endophytes). We sampled the root and stem endospheres of field-grown transgenic and non-transgenic poplar trees (Populus alba × P. berolinensis) and applied 16S rRNA and internal transcribed spacer amplicon Illumina MiSeq sequencing to determine the bacterial and fungal communities associated with the different plant habitats and tissues. We found that actinobacteria, proteobacteria, bacteroidetes, and firmicutes were the dominant endophytic bacteria, and the fungal community was dominated by dothideomycetes, agaricomycetes, leotiomycetes, and sordariomycetes. In conclusion, transgenic events did not affect the endophytic bacterial and fungal diversity of poplar trees. The bacterial and fungal community structure depends on the pH and the soil organic matter content. Each plant tissue represents a unique ecological niche for the microbial communities. Finally, we identified the indicator operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and core microbiome associated with the different plant tissues of Populus and different environmental conditions. The results provide a basis for further study of host-microbial interactions with the identified abundant OTUs of Populus.

Keywords: Populus alba × P. berolinensis; amplicon Illumina MiSeq; endophytic communities; environmental condition; niche differentiation; transgenic events.