Sharing of photobionts in sympatric populations of Thamnolia and Cetraria lichens: evidence from high-throughput sequencing.

ABSTRACT: In this study, we explored the diversity of green algal symbionts (photobionts) in sympatric populations of the cosmopolitan lichen-forming fungi Thamnolia and Cetraria. We sequenced with both Sanger and Ion Torrent High-Throughput Sequencing technologies the photobiont ITS-region of 30 lichen thalli from two islands: Iceland and Öland. While Sanger recovered just one photobiont genotype from each thallus, the Ion Torrent data recovered 10-18 OTUs for each pool of 5 lichen thalli, suggesting that individual lichens can contain heterogeneous photobiont populations. Both methods showed evidence for photobiont sharing between Thamnolia and Cetraria on Iceland. In contrast, our data suggest that on Öland the two mycobionts associate with distinct photobiont communities, with few shared OTUs re

SUBMITTER: Onut-Brannstrom I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5849601 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature