Giant pandas' staple food bamboo phyllosphere fungal community and its influencing factors

Liwen Kang; Wei Luo; Qinglong Dai; Hong Zhou; Wei Wei; Junfeng Tang; Han Han; Yuan Yuan; Juejie Long; Zejun Zhang; Mingsheng Hong

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2022.1009588

Giant pandas' staple food bamboo phyllosphere fungal community and its influencing factors

Front Microbiol. 2022 Sep 30:13:1009588. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.1009588. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Liwen Kang^{1

2}, Wei Luo³, Qinglong Dai³, Hong Zhou^{1

2}, Wei Wei^{1

2}, Junfeng Tang^{1

2}, Han Han^{1

2}, Yuan Yuan^{1

2}, Juejie Long^{1

2}, Zejun Zhang^{1

2}, Mingsheng Hong^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Liziping Giant Panda's Ecology and Conservation Observation and Research Station of Sichuan Province (Science and Technology Department of Sichuan Province), China West Normal University, Nanchong, China.
² Key Laboratory of Southwest China Wildlife Resources Conservation (Ministry of Education), China West Normal University, Nanchong, China.
³ Liziping National Nature Reserve Administration, Ya'an, China.

Abstract

Giant pandas have developed a series of foraging strategies to adapt to their special bamboo diets. Although bamboo is an important food resource for giant pandas in Liziping National Nature Reserve (Liziping NR), China, there are relatively few studies on their phyllosphere fungal community and its influencing factors. Herein, we used ITS1 amplification and metagenomic sequencing to analyze the phyllosphere fungi diversity and functions (KEGG, CAZyme, and antibiotic resistance gene) and explore the influencing factors for the three giant pandas foraging bamboo species (Arundinaria spanostachya, AS; Yushania lineolate, YL; and Fargesia ferax, FF) over different seasons (spring vs. autumn) in Liziping NR, China. We found that Ascomycota and Basidiomycota were the most dominant phyla in the bamboo phyllosphere. The alpha diversity (e.g., the Sobs index and Shannon index) was relatively higher in autumn samples than in spring samples, and the community structure differed significantly between the three bamboo species in spring and autumn. Some biotic and abiotic variables (e.g., the elevation and mean base diameter of bamboo) significantly influenced the abundance, diversity, and community structure of the bamboo phyllosphere fungal community. Moreover, the functional analysis showed the differences in the glycoside hydrolase community and antibiotic resistance gene (ARG) profile between spring and autumn samples. Co-occurrence network modeling suggested that AS phyllosphere fungal communities in autumn employed a much more complex network than that in spring, and the abundance of multidrug, tetracycline, and glycopeptide resistance genes was high and closely correlated with other ARGs. These results indicate that fungal community's abundance, diversity, and community structure are mainly affected by the season, host species, and elevation. The season and host species are major factors affecting the biological functions (KEGG and CAZyme), ARGs, and interactions between sympatric bacterial and fungal communities in bamboo phyllosphere. This integrated study can provide a reference basis for the seasonal management of bamboo resources foraged by wild giant pandas, and predict the risk of antibiotic resistance in bamboo phyllosphere fungal flora in Liziping NR (Xiaoxiangling mountains), China.

Keywords: ARGs; Liziping NR; giant panda; metagenome; phyllosphere fungi; staple food bamboo.