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Symbiotic fungi undergo a taxonomic and functional bottleneck during orchid seeds germination: a case study on Dendrobium moniliforme

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Abstract

In many germinating orchids that rely on fungal partners for their nutrition, fungal diversity decreases during development. We document this pattern in the in situ development of Dendrobium moniliforme, where the diversity of cultivable Tulasnella species drops from the early germinating stage (6 Tulasnella species) to that of emergence of the second leaf (2 species), with species discontinuance and no new species appearing. We investigated the functional aspects of this decay by germinating seeds in vitro with the different strains available and observed, over 60 and 120 days, a perfect match between the stages at which Tulasnella spp. occur in situ and the ability to support in vitro development to this stage. The taxonomic bottleneck during germination may result, at least in D. moniliforme, from inability of the fungus to support seedling growth beyond a specific stage. Moreover, the isolated Tulasnella strains that best supported D. moniliforme development did not cluster together phylogenetically. Thus, the interaction between partners, rather than intrinsic fungal traits, may be involved in bottleneck of fungal symbionts during orchid germination.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U1702235) and the Ministry and Province Joint Construction Project of Yunnan University (C176280109).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Integrative Conservation, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla, 666303, Yunnan, China

    Yuan-Yuan Meng, Shi-Cheng Shao & Qiang Liu

  2. Laboratory of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yunnan University, Kunming, 650500, Yunnan, China

    Xu-Li Fan, Marc-André Selosse & Jiang-Yun Gao

  3. Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650201, Yunnan, China

    Lv-Rong Zhou

  4. Institut de Systématique, Evolution, Biodiversité (ISYEB), Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, EPHE, CP 39, 57 rue Cuvier, 75005, Paris, France

    Marc-André Selosse

  5. Faculty of Biology, University of Gdansk, ul. WitaStwosza 59, 80-308, Gdansk, Poland

    Marc-André Selosse

Authors
  1. Yuan-Yuan Meng
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  2. Xu-Li Fan
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  3. Lv-Rong Zhou
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  4. Shi-Cheng Shao
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  5. Qiang Liu
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  6. Marc-André Selosse
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  7. Jiang-Yun Gao
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Correspondence to Marc-André Selosse or Jiang-Yun Gao.

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Figure S1

Effects of strains of different Tulasnella OTUs (control on medium MS and OMA, or with addition of one of the seven inoculated strains) on the successive stages of the germination process of Dendrobium moniliforme after 60 days. In each panel, different letters indicate significant differences based on Tukey tests of variance. (PNG 1205 kb)

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(TIF 2596 kb)

Figure S2

Mantel test between phylogenetic distance of Tulasnella OTUs (from Fig. 1) and the comparison of the latest stage of Dendrobium moniliforme germination they support over 60 days (‘stage consistency,’ coded as a Boolean value: 0, same stage reached; 1, different stage). The test is non-significant (P = 0.06) and r, the correlation coefficient, indicates low prediction of the stage reached by phylogenetic position. (PNG 127 kb)

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(TIF 1791 kb)

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Meng, YY., Fan, XL., Zhou, LR. et al. Symbiotic fungi undergo a taxonomic and functional bottleneck during orchid seeds germination: a case study on Dendrobium moniliforme. Symbiosis 79, 205–212 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13199-019-00647-x

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