ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbe and Virus Interactions with Plants
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1634222
Seasonal and Regional Structuring of Rhizosphere Fungal Communities in Macadamia integrifolia
Provisionally accepted
- Yunnan Institute of Tropical Crops, Xishuangbanna, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
The rhizosphere fungal communities play a crucial role in plant nutrition, stress resilience, and ecosystem functioning. However, the diversity and ecological functions of these organisms in tropical crops, such as macadamia (Macadamia integrifolia), remain under-explored. The present study examined the spatiotemporal structuring of rhizosphere fungal communities in macadamia across four major production areas in Yunnan Province, China, considering seasonal (dry and rainy), geographic (Changning, Yingjiang, Lancang, and Yunxian), and root-type (normal and cluster) variations. A total of 80 soil samples were collected, and high-throughput sequencing of the fungal Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) region was used to assess community composition, diversity, and functional guilds. Results revealed that both season and geographic location significantly shaped fungal community structure, whereas root type had a more context-dependent effect. Fungal diversity was higher in the rainy season, with Ascomycota (55-65%), Basidiomycota (20-30%), and Mortierellomycota (5-10%) being the dominant phyla. Cluster roots were enriched with symbiotic and functional taxa such as Glomus and Trichoderma, with relative abundances 1.8 and 2.3 times higher than in normal roots, respectively. Seasonal and regional factors exerted a substantial influence on community structure (PERMANOVA, P=0.001). Co-occurrence network analysis revealed seasonal shifts in core taxa: dry-season networks were dominated by Talaromyces and Penicillium (Ascomycota), while rainy-season networks featured Cladosporium and Mortierellaceae (Mortierellomycota), with increased negative interactions in rainy seasons (35% of edges) indicating heightened resource competition. FUNGuild-based predictions indicated a predominance of saprotrophic fungi (50-55%), with rainy-season samples showing a 10% higher proportion than dry-season samples. This study highlights the dynamics and regional specificity of macadamia rhizosphere fungi and provides a foundation for future research on macadamia rhizosphere fungi.
Keywords: Macadamia integrifolia, ITS sequencing, Seasonal variation, Clusterroots, microbial community structure, FUNGuild
Received: 23 May 2025; Accepted: 18 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ning, Chen, Wu, Yang, He and Yue. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hai Yue, Yunnan Institute of Tropical Crops, Xishuangbanna, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.