Abstract
The hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) is an insect native to Asia and likely western North America. First reported in eastern North America in 1951, it has devastated eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) populations. Loss of hemlock will greatly affect the structure and function of eastern forests. Susceptibility to adelgid infestation varies within eastern hemlocks and across other hemlock species. Our study was conducted to determine whether eastern hemlocks share a similar stem (phyllosphere) microbial community with other co-occurring hemlocks and whether community-level shifts are associated within trees of the same species based on HWA infestation. Surprisingly, we found no difference in microbial community composition or diversity between trees of the same species based on the level of HWA infestation. However, microbial communities varied significantly across the four hemlock trees sampled, native T. canadensis and three non-natives: Tsuga chinensis, Tsuga dumosa, and Tsuga sieboldii. Within these tree hosts, microbial communities from T. dumosa and T. chinensis clustered together, and microbial communities from T. canadensis and T. sieboldii clustered separately from all other tree species. Additionally, specific indicator taxa were identified for all the tree species sampled. These results indicate that Asian hemlocks might not fill the same niche in eastern forests as the native eastern hemlock. Further work should be conducted to determine how differences in hemlock species and associated microbial communities might scale up to alter organismal interactions involving hemlocks.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e02524 |
| Journal | Ecosphere |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue number | 12 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2018 |
Funding
This research was supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy through a Liane Russell Fellowship awarded to M.A. Cregger, the Eppley Foundation for Research, the endowment of the Nancy Gore Hunger Professorship in Environmental Studies at the University of Tennessee, and the National Science Foundation (DEB 1638922) to J.A. For-dyce. This research was also sponsored by the Genomic Science Program, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research, as part of the Plant Microbe Interfaces Scientific Focus Area at ORNL (http://pmi.ornl.gov). Oak Ridge National Laboratory is managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DEAC05-00OR22725. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The US Government retains, and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy. gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| National Science Foundation | DEB 1638922, 1638922 |
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Office of Science | |
| Biological and Environmental Research | |
| Oak Ridge National Laboratory | DEAC05-00OR22725 |
| University of Tennessee | |
| Eppley Foundation for Research |
Keywords
- hemlock
- hemlock woolly adelgid
- microbial community
- next-generation sequencing
- phyllosphere