Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal diversity in high-altitude hypersaline Andean wetlands studied by 454-sequencing and morphological approaches

VANESA ANALÍA SILVANI; ROXANA PAULA COLOMBO; MARÍA VICTORIA SCORZA; LAURA FERNÁNDEZ BIDONDO; CAROLINA PAOLA ROTHEN; ADALGISA SCOTTI; SEBASTIÁN FRACCHIA; ALICIA GODEAS

SYMBIOSIS

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2016 p. 1 - 10

0334-5114

The Laguna Brava Nature Reserve is a stressfulhabitat in the Andean Mountains (Argentina) dominated byextreme abiotic factors: high altitude and UV radiance, hypersalinity,alkalinity, and high concentrations of toxic elementsin the soil. The sparse native vegetation that inhabits LagunaBrava and Mulas Muertas wetlands is frequently colonized byarbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi. It is, however, unknownwhich AM species can survive in such a harsh environmentand how those environmental conditions influence the AMcommunities. To answer these questions, 454-amplicon pyrosequencingand morphological (based on spore traits) approacheswere used to assess fungal diversity. A total of 23molecular operational taxonomic units and 14 distinct morphospeciesof AM fungi were identified. The morphologicalcharacterization of AM fungal communities in Laguna Bravaand Mulas Muertas,supported by the molecular data, revealedthat Glomeraceae and Claroideoglomeraceae were thedominant families, confirming the predominance of generalistand ruderal AM fungal taxa but with stresstolerantlife history traits. Our results showed that thepresence of AM fungi is strongly associated with localenvironmental variations in Laguna Brava (hypersalinityand high Na+, Sr, As and U contents in soils). The AM fungalcommunities in Laguna Brava and Mulas Muertas wetlandswere similar according to the Simpson diversity index and theecological distance estimated by Bray Curtis index. Theseresults were also supported by the environmental parametersmeasured, as they did not vary between the studied sites. Thisstudy represents the first characterization of AM fungal communityin a high-altitude Andean wetland in Argentina, improvingour knowledge about these fungi from extremeenvironments.