Variation in ectomycorrhizal fungal communities associated with Silver linden (Tilia tomentosa) within and across urban areas

Maarten van Geel (1) , Kang Yu (1) , Tobias Ceulemans (1) , Gerrit Peeters (1) , Kasper van Acker (1) , Willem Geerts (1) , Miguel M. Ramos (2) , Cindy Serafim (2) , Pierre Kastendeuch (3) , Georges Najjar (3) , Thierry Ameglio (4) , Jérome Ngao (4) , M. Saudreau (4) , Michael Waud (1) , Bart Lievens (1) , Paula M. L. Castro (2) , Ben Somers (1) , Olivier Honnay (1)

1 KU Leuven
2 Universidade Católica Portuguesa
3 UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg
4 PIAF - Laboratoire de Physique et Physiologie Intégratives de l’Arbre en environnement Fluctuant

Trees in urban areas face harsh environmental conditions. Ectomycorrhizal fungi (EcM) form a symbiosis with many tree species and provide a range of benefits to their host through their extraradical hyphal network. Although our understanding of the environmental drivers and large scale geographical variation of EcM communities in natural ecosystems is growing, our knowledge of EcM communities within and across urban areas is still limited. Here we characterized EcM communities using Illumina miseq sequencing on 175 root samples of the urban tree Tilia tomentosa from three European cities, namely Leuven (Belgium), Strasbourg (France) and Porto (Portugal). We found strong differences in EcM richness and community composition between cities. Soil acidity, organic matter and moisture content were significantly associated with EcM community composition. In agreement, the explained variability in EcM communities was mostly attributed to general soil characteristics, whereas very little variation was explained by city and heavy metal pollution. Overall, our results suggest that EcM communities in urban areas are significantly associated with soil characteristics, while heavy metal pollution and biogeography had little or no impact. These findings deliver new insights into EcM distribution patterns in urban areas and contribute to specific inoculation strategies to improve urban tree vitality.

Mots clés: urbanization; ectomycorrhiza

Mots clés: séquençage nouvelle génération; urbanisation; pollution; ectomycorhize; teneur en metaux lourds

Domaines: Biologie végétale

Maarten van Geel, Kang Yu, Tobias Ceulemans, Gerrit Peeters, Kasper van Acker, et al.. Variation in ectomycorrhizal fungal communities associated with Silver linden (Tilia tomentosa) within and across urban areas. FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 2018, ⟨10.1093/femsec/fiy207⟩. ⟨hal-01904404⟩