Abstract：
Endophytic fungi, pivotal in facilitating plant co-evolution, significantly enhance plant growth, stress resistance, and environmental adaptability. Despite their importance, the spatial distribution of stem endophytic fungi (SEF) within host plants remains poorly characterized. Here, we employed high-throughput sequencing to conduct a comparative analysis of SEF communities in Mussaenda pubescens on a regional scale. Our findings reveal that whole-SEF communities were overwhelmingly dominated by members of the phylum Ascomycota, accounting for 85.9 %, followed by Basidiomycota at 13.9 %, and that alpha diversity within the whole-SEF community of M. pubescens remains relatively consistent across sampling sites. However, significant variation was observed within conditionally abundant taxa (CAT), conditionally rare or abundant taxa (CRAT), and conditionally rare taxa (CRT). Climatic factors emerged as the primary influence on SEF community distribution, followed by spatial distance and stem chemical properties. Neutral community modeling results suggested that both stochastic and deterministic processes play a role in shaping whole-SEF communities, with deterministic processes having a stronger influence on CRT subcommunities. Furthermore, the CRT co-occurrence network exhibited a more complex structure, characterized by higher values of network betweenness and degree relative to CAT and CRAT subcommunities. These findings enhance our understanding of community assembly and ecological interactions between stem fungal endophytes, presenting opportunities for harnessing fungal resources for the benefit of humanity.
摘要：
内生真菌,促进植物共同进化的关键，显著促进植物生长，抗应力，和环境适应性。尽管它们很重要,寄主植物中茎内生真菌（SEF）的空间分布特征仍然很差。这里,我们采用高通量测序方法,在区域范围内对毛竹SEF群落进行了比较分析.我们的发现表明，整个SEF社区绝大多数由子囊门成员主导，占85.9%，其次是担子菌，占13.9%，并且整个毛竹SEF群落中的α多样性在采样点之间保持相对一致。然而,在条件丰富的分类群(CAT)中观察到显著的变化，有条件稀有或丰富的分类群（CRAT），和条件稀有类群(CRT)。气候因素成为SEF社区分布的主要影响因素，其次是空间距离和茎的化学性质。中性社区建模结果表明，随机和确定性过程在塑造整个SEF社区中都起着作用，确定性过程对CRT亚社区有更强的影响。此外，CRT共现网络表现出更复杂的结构，以相对于CAT和CRAT亚社区的网络间值和程度值较高为特征。这些发现增强了我们对茎真菌内生菌之间的群落组装和生态相互作用的理解，为人类提供利用真菌资源的机会。
