Fungi associated with fine roots of Fraxinus excelsior affected by ash dieback detected by next-generation sequencing

Abstract

The decline of European ash by dieback caused by Hymenoscyphus fraxineus together with stem collar necroses and rots caused by various fungi has been investigated intensively during the last years. Nevertheless, hitherto nearly nothing is known about the species diversity of the fungal rhizobiome of ash trees. Here we investigated the fine roots of affected ash trees on 15 sampling sites in 6 federal countries of Germany. Fine-root samples have been treated in three different sample regimes each as root-adhering soil, unsterilized fine roots and sterilized fine roots. The samples of trees in sampling sites were pooled to get an overview of the species-richness in the area. The next-generation sequencing platform Oxford Nanopore MinION was used to sequence the entire ITS of pooled probes. Most abundant phyla in all samples were the Basidiomycota and Ascomycota. Species richness in sterilized roots was significantly different from unsterilized roots and root-adhering soil. Surprisingly most abundant genera in sterilized roots were the genera Mycena, Mycenella and Delicatula, all of them agaricoids with saprophytic lifestyle. Eleven genera of Glomeromycota have been detected in various abundances, whereas the detection of H. fraxineus was neglectable.