Our project aimed to study the pattern of the leaf-associated mycobiomes of European beech (Fagus sylvatica) at different altitudes to reveal diversity, composition and seasonal dynamics of fungal endophytes by a combination of metabarcoding, cultivation and subsequent ecological analyses.
Results/Conclusions
Mycobiome diversity and composition correlated significantly with the origin of the trees, pointing to local habitat condition as a main driver. Under natural conditions the mycobiome was more diverse at lower elevation. Additionally, leaf chlorophyll and flavonoid contents showed negative correlations with fungal richness in natural stands. Metabarcoding and cultivation approach resulted in non-overlapping community compositions and pronounced differences in taxonomic classification and trophic stages. However, both methods revealed similar correlations of the fungal communities with local environmental conditions. Our results indicate undeniable advantages of metabarcoding over cultivation in terms of representation of the major functional guilds, rare taxa and diversity signals of leaf-inhabiting fungi. We observed a strong seasonal turnover in phyllosphere fungi in both habitats over the two years of investigation, suggesting that the plant-fungal system not only responds to cyclic climatic conditions but depends as well on various parameters, e.g., geographic position, substrates age and surrounding vegetation. In general, the altitudinal difference is the most important explaining factor for community differences, which shapes many dependent abiotic and biotic habitat factors. Regarding cost and time per sequence, metabarcoding is superior to cultivation approaches and offers surprisingly profound insights by yielding much more data, allowing to test at once multiple hypotheses in fungal ecology.