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Bacterial and fungal endophyte communities differ in trees of natural versus wastewater-treatment wetlands

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Abstract

Little is known about the microbiota that form symbioses with wetland plants. We describe how endophytes from leaves and roots of baldcypress trees changed along a nutrient gradient and differed in wastewater treated versus untreated wetlands. Cultured bacterial and fungal endophytes were most abundant and diverse in baldcypress roots (compared to leaves) for both treated and untreated wetlands. Bacterial endophyte abundance increased with increasing distance from the wastewater outfall pipe, while fungal endophytes decreased with increasing distance from the wastewater outfall pipe—showing a greater abundance of fungi where nutrients were greatest. Bacterial endophyte abundance and species richness were greater in the wastewater-treatment compared to untreated wetlands, but diversity metrics suggested this was due to incomplete sampling at some sites. Community composition of endophytes in the treated wetland differed from some but not all of the communities observed in untreated wetlands. Since baldcypress is a key restoration species for declining swamps in the southeastern US, our descriptive work provides a foundation for future studies to understand the functional roles of plant-microbial interactions and community patterns.

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Acknowledgements

For help in the lab and field we thank Mae Berlow, Kim Mighell, Peter Tellez, Kathalina Tran, Josh Lerner, Casey Gu, James Sebes, Emma Tower, Elaine Broussard, George Washburn, and Julie Whitbeck. Collections that occurred at Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve were authorized by permit # JELA-2014-SCI-0012.

Funding

Funds were provided by the School of Science and Engineering at Tulane University to S. Van Bael, as well as a Louisiana Board of Regents SURE (EPSCOR) award to J. Janowsky and a Tulane Honors College award to J. Janowsky.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Tulane University, 6823 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA, 70118, USA

    Jennifer Janowsky, Elizabeth Kimbrough, Stephen K. Formel & Sunshine A. Van Bael

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, Southeastern Louisiana University, 808 N. Pine St., Hammond, LA, 70402, USA

    Demetra Kandalepas & Gary Shaffer

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  1. Jennifer Janowsky
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  2. Elizabeth Kimbrough
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  3. Demetra Kandalepas
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  6. Sunshine A. Van Bael
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Correspondence to Sunshine A. Van Bael.

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Supplementary material 1—Table S1 and S2 (XLSX 31 kb)

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Supplementary material 2—Figure S1. Map of transects and reference trees at the treated site. Yellow circles indicate where the samples were collected. The reference area was outside of the area in which treated wastewater would have had contact. The labels 0, 200, 400 and 600 m refer to the distance from the wastewater outfall pipe. (JPEG 1555 kb)

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Supplementary material 3—Figure S2. Map of the five sample sites for baldcypress endophytes in southeastern Louisiana. Sample sites are designated with a yellow circle. (JPEG 1570 kb)

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Supplementary material 4—Figure S3. Species diversity estimates for fungal endophytes of baldcypress. (a) All endophytes at the Hammond site only, showing empirical species diversity for the Hill numbers 0 < q < 3. For example, species richness at q = 0 is 32 OTUs, with a value for Shannon diversity (q = 1) of 17.11 and a value for Simpson’s diversity (q = 2) of 8.51. (b) Hammond site only, showing the estimated species diversity for the Hill numbers 0 < q < 3. (c) A comparison of empirical species diversity using Hill numbers 0 < q < 3 for all of the sites in the study. Although the empirical observation of species richness (q = 0) makes the sample at Hammond appear more diverse than the other sites, the overlapping 95% confidence intervals for q > 0.5 illustrate that there is not a significant difference in species diversity among sites. All shaded areas represent 95% confidence intervals based on 100 bootstrap replications (JPEG 219 kb)

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Janowsky, J., Kimbrough, E., Kandalepas, D. et al. Bacterial and fungal endophyte communities differ in trees of natural versus wastewater-treatment wetlands. Wetlands Ecol Manage 27, 711–723 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-019-09688-x

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