Data from: Differences in the fungal communities nursed by two genetic groups of the alpine cushion plant, Silene acaulis

• Main Authors: Roy, Julien, Bonneville, Jean-Marc, Saccone, Patrick, Ibanez, Sebastien, Albert, Cecile H., Boleda, Marti, Gueguen, Maya, Ohlmann, Marc, Rioux, Delphine, Clément, Jean-Christophe, Lavergne, Sebastien, Geremia, Roberto A.
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2018
• Subjects: Fungal community; nurse effect; Silene acaulis; soil ecosystem engineering; Pyrenopeziza brassicae; Holocene; community genetics; Moss campion
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2v1m1fj

Foundation plants shape the composition of local biotic communities and abiotic environments, but the impact of a plant's intraspecific variations on these processes is poorly understood. We examined these links in the alpine cushion moss campion (Silene acaulis) on two neighboring mountain ranges in the French Alps. Genotyping of cushion plants revealed two genetic clusters matching known subspecies. The exscapa subspecies was found on both limestone and granite while the longiscapa one was only found on limestone. Even on similar limestone bedrock, cushion soils from the two S. acaulis subspecies deeply differed in their impact on soil abiotic conditions. They further strikingly differed from each other and from the surrounding bare soils in fungal community composition. Plant genotype variations accounted for a large part of the fungal composition variability in cushion soils, even when considering geography or soil chemistry, and particularly for the dominant molecular operational taxonomic units (MOTUs). Both saprophytic and biotrophic fungal taxa were related to the MOTUs recurrently associated with a single plant genetic cluster. Moreover, the putative phytopathogens were abundant, and within the same genus (Cladosporium) or species (Pyrenopeziza brassicae), MOTUs showing specificity for each plant subspecies were found. Our study highlights the combined influences of bedrock and plant genotype on fungal recruitment into cushion soils and suggests the coexistence of two mechanisms, an indirect selection resulting from the colonization of an engineered soil by free-living saprobes, and a direct selection resulting from direct plant-fungi interactions. README1 a file describing the content of the other files in this archive _README1.txt Table S1_SiteDescription Geographical site coordinates AFLPdata Presence/absence data of 345 AFLP markers for 85 Silene acaulis cushion plants FungITS1_mrseq98.ecotag.unite.fasta Most represented fungal ITS1 sequence for each of the 9379 MOTUs defined at the 98% identity ...