Project description:Current climate change has led to latitudinal and altitudinal range expansions of numerous species. During such range expansions, plant species are expected to experience changes in interactions with other organisms, especially with belowground biota that have a limited dispersal capacity. Nematodes form a key component of the belowground food web as they include bacterivores, fungivores, omnivores and root herbivores. However, their community composition under climate change-driven intracontinental range-expanding plants has been studied almost exclusively under controlled conditions, whereas little is known about actual patterns in the field. Here, we use novel molecular sequencing techniques combined with morphological quantification in order to examine nematode communities in the rhizospheres of four range-expanding and four congeneric native species along a 2,000 km latitudinal transect from South-Eastern to North-Western Europe. We tested the hypotheses that latitudinal shifts in nematode community composition are stronger in range-expanding plant species than in congeneric natives and that in their new range, range-expanding plant species accumulate fewest root-feeding nematodes. Our results show latitudinal variation in nematode community composition of both range expanders and native plant species, while operational taxonomic unit richness remained the same across ranges. Therefore, range-expanding plant species face different nematode communities at higher latitudes, but this is also the case for widespread native plant species. Only one of the four range-expanding plant species showed a stronger shift in nematode community composition than its congeneric native and accumulated fewer root-feeding nematodes in its new range. We conclude that variation in nematode community composition with increasing latitude occurs for both range-expanding and native plant species and that some range-expanding plant species may become released from root-feeding nematodes in the new range.
Project description:Background: Plant disease is a major challenge to agriculture worldwide, and it is often exacerbated by abiotic environmental factors. During some plant-pathogen interactions, heat stress increases host susceptibility, a tendency which could spell disaster in light of the global warming trends associated with climate change. Despite the importance of this phenomenon, little is known about the molecular mechanisms that cause it. To better understand host plant responses during simultaneous heat and pathogen stress, we conducted a transcriptomics experiment for rice plants infected with Xanthomonas oryzae (Xo), an economically important bacterial pathogen of rice, during high temperature stress. Results: Using RNA-Seq technology, 8,499 differentially expressed genes were identified as temperature responsive in one rice cultivar, IRBB61, experiencing susceptible and resistant interactions with Xo across three time points. Many genes with gene ontology terms associated with stress response were identified. Notably, genes in the plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) biosynthesis and response pathways were identified as upregulated by high temperature in both mock-treated plants and plants in the susceptible interaction and suppressed by high temperature in plants in the resistant interaction. A DNA sequence motif similar to known ABA-responsive cis-regulatory elements was identified in the promoter region upstream of genes upregulated in susceptible but downregulated in resistant interactions. Conclusions: The results of our study suggest that the plant hormone ABA is an important node for cross-talk between plant transcriptional response pathways to high temperature stress and pathogen attack. Genes in this pathway represent an important focus for future study to determine how plants evolved to deal with simultaneous abiotic and biotic stresses.