Poster
Sue Jones (she/her/hers)
Bioinformatics Group Leader
The James Hutton Institute
Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom
Beth Moore
Post Doctoral Researcher
The James Hutton Institute
Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom
Annika Perry
Ecological Geneticist
UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Penicuik, Scotland, United Kingdom
Sundeep Kaur
Forest Research
Farnham, England, United Kingdom
Bridget Crampton
Forest Research
Farnham, England, United Kingdom
V Anne Smith
Senior Lecturer
University of St Andrews
St Andrews, Scotland, United Kingdom
Krisztian Nemeth
UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Penicuik, Scotland, United Kingdom
Hattie Barber
Research Associate Plant Ecology
UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Penicuik, Scotland, United Kingdom
Stephen Cavers
Group Leader, Ecology Evolution and Environmental Change
UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Penicuik, Scotland, United Kingdom
A key challenge in plant disease research is to understand how interactions between a plant host and its microbiome affect disease progression and severity. Understanding these interactions in trees may have important consequences for managing commercial forests and native forest habitats. One globally important tree pathogen is the foliar fungal pathogen, Dothistroma septosporum (DNB). This pathogen infects multiple pine species, including Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris). DNB infection causes needle loss, reduced timber yields and in severe cases tree death. Previous research has shown variation in susceptibility to DNB among P.sylvestris genotypes, but the mechanism underlying this variation is unclear. One hypothesis is that an interaction between the host genotype and the foliar microbial community influences DNB infection.
To test this hypothesis, we compared the diversity of fungal pine needle microbe communities across a range of P.sylvestris genotypes, using a metabarcoding approach. The trees sampled were clustered into DNB susceptible and resistant genotypes, and the pine needle fungal microbial communities assessed at three time points. We found differences in diversity between DNB resistant and susceptible genotypes, with resistant genotypes showing more diverse fungal communities than the susceptible genotypes. We also observed temporal variation in community diversity as the disease progressed, with diversity decreasing across the time points through the season.