Endophytic fungal community composition and function response to strawberry genotype and disease resistance.

Background: Utilizating the plant endophytic microbiomes to enhance pathogen resistance in crop production is an emerging alternative method to chemical pesticides. However, research on the composition and role of microbial communities related to perennial fruit plants, such as the strawberry, is still limited.

Methods: We provide a comprehensive description of the composition and diversity of fungal communities in three niches (root, stem, and leaf) of three strawberry cultivars ('White Elves', 'Tokun', and 'Akihime') using internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rRNA amplicon sequencing and isolation culture methods. In addition, we also evaluated the disease tolerance ability of three strawberry cultivars to Colletotrichum gloeosporioides and Alternaria alternata through pathogenicity testing.

Results: 'White Elves' has stronger resistance to Colletotrichum gloeosporioides, and Alternaria alternata, followed by 'Tokun', while 'Akihime' has relatively weaker resistance to these pathogens. A total of 258 fungal strains were isolated from healthy strawberry plants and assigned to 34 fungal genera based on morphological and molecular characteristics analysis. Beneficial fungal genera such as Trichoderma and Talaromyces were more prevalent in 'White Elves', whereas common pathogenic fungi in strawberry, such as Colletotrichum, Alternaria, and Fusarium, were more prevalent in 'Akihime'. The composition and diversity of microbial communities vary among genotypes, and resistance to pathogens may play dominant roles in determining the microbial community structure. This study's results aid the biological control of strawberry fungal diseases and are useful for plant microbiome engineering in strawberry cultivation.