ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Systems Microbiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1640133
Exploring the fungal community structure and assembly in different tissues of Gymnadenia conopsea
Provisionally accepted
- Tibet Agriculture and Animal Husbandry College, Linzhi, 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
Gymnadenia conopsea has high economic value and can be used as a medicinal and ornamental plant. Owing to its low natural reproduction rate and overexploitation, the risk of extinction of this plant is gradually increasing. Endophytic fungi play crucial roles in host growth and development; however, the characteristics of the endophytic fungal community in various tissues of G. conopsea have not been fully characterized. Illumina MiSeq high-throughput sequencing technology was employed to sequence the fungal ITS (A non-coding DNA sequence located between the 18S rRNA gene and the 5.8S rRNA gene within the ribosomal RNA gene cluster) region, thereby characterizing the community structure and assembly processes of endophytic fungi in roots, stems, leaves, and fruits. A total of 7,371 OTUs were obtained from all the samples and were dominated by Ascomycota and Basidiomycota. The richness indices of various tissues were significantly different, whereas the diversity indices were not significantly different. The composition of the dominant genera differed; overall, the compositions of the endophytic fungal communities were similar among the leaf, stem, and fruit tissues. The relative abundances of Ceratobasidium, Cadophora, and Mortierella were significantly higher in root tissues than in other tissues, G. conopsea roots should be prioritized as the material for isolating growth-promoting endophytic fungi. Cooccurrence network analysis revealed that endophytic fungi in different tissues presented typical modular structures and the network was mainly positive. The assembly processes in different tissues were affected mainly by deterministic factors. The proportions of pathotrophs, saprotrophs, and symbiotrophs were different among various tissues, and the proportion of pathotrophs was greater than those of saprotrophs and symbiotrophs. In conclusion, tissue type affects the composition of endophytic fungi. Furthermore, by dissecting the composition and functions of the fungal community associated with G. conopsea, this study aims to provide a reference for exploring the interaction mechanisms between endophytic fungi and G. conopsea.
Keywords: Gymnadenia conopsea, endophytic fungi, community structure, network, Assembly, Tissue type
Received: 03 Jun 2025; Accepted: 18 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yin, Lu, Quan, Zhang and Wang. 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:
Erhao Zhang, zhangerhao@xza.edu.cn
Zhongbin Wang, 0823yuan1020@163.com
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.