Aspen Leaves as a "Chemical Landscape" for Fungal Endophyte Diversity-Effects of Nitrogen Addition.

ABSTRACT: Abiotic and biotic factors may shape the mycobiome communities in plants directly but also indirectly by modifying the quality of host plants as a substrate. We hypothesized that nitrogen fertilization (N) would determine the quality of aspen (Populus tremula) leaves as a substrate for the endophytic fungi, and that by subjecting the plants to N, we could manipulate the concentrations of positive (nutritious) and negative (antifungal) chemicals in leaves, thus changing the internal "chemical landscape" for the fungi. We expected that this would lead to changes in the fungal community composition, in line with the predictions of heterogeneity-diversity relationship and resource availability hypotheses. To test this, we conducted a greenhouse study where aspen plants were subjected to

SUBMITTER: Witzell J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8978019 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature