Local Tree Diversity Suppresses Foliar Fungal Infestation and Decreases Morphological But Not Molecular Richness in a Young Subtropical Forest.

ABSTRACT: Leaf fungal pathogens alter their host species' performance and, thus, changes in fungal species composition can translate into effects at the tree community scale. Conversely, the functional diversity of tree species in a host tree's local neighbourhood can affect the host's foliar fungal infestation. Therefore, understanding the factors that affect fungal infestations is important to advance our understanding of biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) relationships. Here we make use of the largest BEF tree experiment worldwide, the BEF-China experiment, where we selected tree host species with different neighbour species. Identifying fungal taxa by microscopy and by high-throughput DNA sequencing techniques based on the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rDNA region, we analysed the fung

SUBMITTER: Saadani M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7997179 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature