Impact of Trichoderma on tomato rhizosphere mycobiome

Trichoderma has been widely used to control soilborne diseases of many crops. Some commercial products contain more than one species, but if consortia affect crop growth and rhizosphere mycobiome differently from individual species is poorly studied. We aim to (i) determine the population size of each species when two Trichoderma species were co-applied to tomato growing soils, (ii) identify tomato rhizosphere fungal taxa that could interact either positively or negatively with introduced Trichoderma species through fungal co-occurrence network analysis, and (iii) determine whether the application of individual Trichoderma species and their combination differentially shape the tomato rhizosphere fungal community structure (ex: beta and alpha diversity, the relative abundance of major fungal phyla and genera).