ABSTRACT: Diversity, community composition and structure of the endomycobiota of balsam fir trees (Abies balsamea [L.] Mill) as a function of tissue type
Project description:Spanish fir (Abies pinsapo) is a relict tree that is found in southern Spain mountains. In natural conditions two phenotypes can be observed, trees with blue needles and trees with green needles. The aim of the present work is to elucidate at transcriptomic levels the possible causes of the differences between these phenotypes.
Project description:Endomycobiotas of the last four cohorts of Abies balsamea needles display relatively similar diversities but different compositions
Project description:De novo transcriptomic profiling of needle abscission/retention events in contrasting balsam fir (Abies balsamea L.) lines in response to postharvest dehydration stress
Project description:Local adaptation and phenotypic plasticity are important components of plant responses to variations in environmental conditions. While local adaptation has been widely studied in trees, little is known about plasticity of gene expression in adult trees in response to ever-changing environmental conditions in natural habitats. Here we investigate plasticity of gene expression in needle tissue between two douglas-fir provenances represented by 25 adult trees using deep RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq). Using linear mixed models, we investigated the effect of temperature, soil water availability and photoperiod on the abundance of 59189 detected transcripts. Expression of more than 80% of all identified transcripts revealed a response to variations in environmental conditions in the field. GO term overrepresentation analysis revealed gene expression responses to temperature, soil water availability and photoperiod that are highly conserved among many plant taxa. However, expression differences between the two Douglas-fir provenances were rather small compared to the expression differences observed between individual trees. Although the effect of environment on global transcript expression was high, the observed genotype by environment (GxE) interaction of gene expression was surprisingly low, since only 21 of all detected transcripts showed a GxE interaction.
Project description:The conservation of the endangered Korean fir, Abies koreana, is of critical ecological importance. In our previous study, a yeast-like fungus identified as Aureobasidium pullulans AK10, was isolated and shown to enhance drought tolerance in A. koreana seedlings. In this study, the effectiveness of A. pullulans AK10 treatment in enhancing drought tolerance in A. koreana was confirmed. Furthermore, using transcriptome analysis, we compared A. koreana seedlings treated with A. pullulans AK10 to untreated controls under drought conditions to elucidate the molecular responses involved in increased drought tolerance.
