Shifts in community composition and co-occurrence patterns of phyllosphere fungi inhabiting Mussaenda shikokiana along an elevation gradient

The altitudinal partitioning of the distributions of phyllosphere fungal assemblages in conspecific plants remains poorly elucidated. To address this, phyllosphere fungal communities associated with Mussaenda shikokiana were investigated at four sites across an altitude gradient of about 350 m by employing Illumina metabarcoding of the fungal ITS2 region. The results demonstrated that the phyllosphere fungal assemblages possessed high diversity in taxonomic classification and trophic guilds. Elevation strongly structured the fungal community composition and the species richness increased significantly with increasing elevation. Additionally, comparison of the phyllosphere fungal networks showed reduced connectivity along the elevation gradient. These findings provide insight on the effects of elevation on the distribution and inter-taxa interactions of the phyllosphere fungal community associated with a single host by using high-throughput sequencing

同种植物叶围（phyllosphere）真菌群落分布的海拔分异机制目前仍未得到充分阐明。为此，本研究以分布于海拔梯度约350米区间内的4个样地中的楠藤（*Mussaenda shikokiana*）为研究对象，采用真菌ITS2区域的Illumina宏条形码测序技术，对与其共生的叶围真菌群落展开探究。研究结果显示，该叶围真菌群落在分类学组成与营养功能群层面均呈现出较高的多样性；海拔显著塑造了真菌群落的组成结构，且物种丰富度随海拔升高呈显著上升趋势。此外，对叶围真菌群落网络的比较分析表明，随海拔梯度升高，群落网络的类群间连通性呈下降趋势。上述研究结果通过高通量测序技术，为解析海拔对单一宿主植物共生叶围真菌群落的分布及类群间互作模式的影响提供了重要的科学见解。