Rhizosphere fungi actively assimilating plant-derived carbon in a grassland soil

TY - JOUR

T1 - Rhizosphere fungi actively assimilating plant-derived carbon in a grassland soil

AU - Hannula, Emilia

AU - Morrien, Elly

AU - van der Putten, W.H.

AU - de Boer, W.

N1 - 7019, TE, ME; Data archiving: data archived in ENA

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - Despite the advantages of the next generation sequencing (NGS) techniques, one of their caveats is that they do not differentiate between microbes that are actively participating in carbon cycling in the rhizosphere and microbes performing other functions in the soils. Here we combined DNA-SIP with NGS to investigate which rhizosphere fungi actively assimilate plant-derived carbon. We provided 13CO2 to plants in intact soil cores collected from a grassland and sampled the rhizosphere in a time series to follow the fate of carbon in the rhizosphere mycobiome. We detected a difference between active rhizosphere fungi using plant-derived carbon and the total mycobiota: 58% of fungal species were using fresh rhizodeposits, and an additional 22% of fungal species received carbon several weeks later while 20% were not involved in cycling of freshly photosynthesized carbon. We show that members of Ascomycota, Mucoromycota, and basidiomycete yeasts were first users of freshly photosynthesized carbon, while fungi not using recently fixed carbon consisted mainly of mycelial (non-yeast) Basidiomycota. We conclude that a majority of fungi inhabiting the rhizosphere in this grassland ecosystem are actively using plant derived carbon either directly or via food-web interactions.

AB - Despite the advantages of the next generation sequencing (NGS) techniques, one of their caveats is that they do not differentiate between microbes that are actively participating in carbon cycling in the rhizosphere and microbes performing other functions in the soils. Here we combined DNA-SIP with NGS to investigate which rhizosphere fungi actively assimilate plant-derived carbon. We provided 13CO2 to plants in intact soil cores collected from a grassland and sampled the rhizosphere in a time series to follow the fate of carbon in the rhizosphere mycobiome. We detected a difference between active rhizosphere fungi using plant-derived carbon and the total mycobiota: 58% of fungal species were using fresh rhizodeposits, and an additional 22% of fungal species received carbon several weeks later while 20% were not involved in cycling of freshly photosynthesized carbon. We show that members of Ascomycota, Mucoromycota, and basidiomycete yeasts were first users of freshly photosynthesized carbon, while fungi not using recently fixed carbon consisted mainly of mycelial (non-yeast) Basidiomycota. We conclude that a majority of fungi inhabiting the rhizosphere in this grassland ecosystem are actively using plant derived carbon either directly or via food-web interactions.

KW - NIOO

KW - Plan_S-Compliant_NO

KW - Active microbiome

KW - DNA-SIP

KW - Grasslands

KW - Mycobiota

KW - 13C labeling

KW - Rhizosphere

U2 - 10.1016/j.funeco.2020.100988

DO - 10.1016/j.funeco.2020.100988

M3 - Article

SN - 1754-5048

VL - 48

JO - Fungal Ecology

JF - Fungal Ecology

M1 - 100988

ER -