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Clonal spore populations in sporocarps of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi

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Abstract

Some arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal species known to form sporocarps (i.e., aggregations of spores) are polyphyletic in two orders, Glomerales and Diversisporales. Spore clusters (sporocarp-like structures) often formed in pot cultures or in vitro conditions are supposed to be clonal populations, while sporocarps in natural habitats with a fungal peridium are morphologically similar to those of epigeous sexual (zygosporic) sporocarps of Endogone species. Thus, in this study, we explored the genetics of sporocarpic spores of two AM fungi with a view to possibilities of clonal or sexual reproduction during sporocarps formation. To examine these possibilities, we investigated single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in reduced genomic libraries of spores isolated from sporocarps molecularly identified as Rhizophagus irregularis and Diversispora epigaea. In addition, partial sequences of the MAT locus HD2 gene of R. irregularis were phylogenetically analyzed to determine the nuclear status of the spores. We found that most SNPs were shared among the spores isolated from each sporocarp in both species. Furthermore, all HD2 sequences from spores isolated from three R. irregularis sporocarps were identical. These results indicate that those sporocarps comprise clonal spores. Therefore, sporocarps with clonal spores may have different functions than sexual reproduction, such as massive spore production or spore dispersal via mycophagy.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Minoru Nakajima for his help in sporocarp sampling. We also thank Enago (www.enago.jp) for English language review.

Funding

This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers19K22269 and 19H03281.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, Chiba University, 1-33, Yayoi-cho, Inage-ku, Chiba, 263-8522, Japan

    Masahide Yamato

  2. Graduate School of Education, Chiba University, 1-33, Yayoi-cho, Inage-ku, Chiba, 263-8522, Japan

    Hiroki Yamada

  3. Institute for Advanced Biosciences, Keio University, Kakuganji 246-2, Mizukami, Tsuruoka, Yamagata, 997-0052, Japan

    Taro Maeda

  4. Tochigi Prefectural Museum, 2-2 Mutsumi-cho, Utsunomiya, Tochigi, 320-0865, Japan

    Kohei Yamamoto

  5. Graduate School of Horticulture, Chiba University, 648 Matsudo, Chiba, 271-8510, Japan

    Ryota Kusakabe

  6. Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Natural History, 499 Iryuda, Odawara, Kanagawa, 250-0031, Japan

    Takamichi Orihara

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  1. Masahide Yamato
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  2. Hiroki Yamada
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  4. Kohei Yamamoto
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  6. Takamichi Orihara
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Contributions

M.Y. and T.O. designed the study. M.Y. and K.Y. collected sporocarp samples and conducted morphological analysis. M.Y. and H.Y. performed DNA sequencing of SSU-ITS-LSU rDNA and MIG-seq. T.M. analyzed MIG-seq data, and R.K. performed statistical analysis on SNPs data. M.Y. wrote the manuscript, and T.M., K.Y., and T.O. contributed to revisions. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Masahide Yamato.

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Yamato, M., Yamada, H., Maeda, T. et al. Clonal spore populations in sporocarps of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Mycorrhiza 32, 373–385 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00572-022-01086-1

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