Mexican Vanilla planifolia fungal communities

Orchid mycorrhizal fungi (OMF) are essential symbionts of orchids, for example, germinating orchid seeds which lack nutrients. Little is known about OMF during the adult stage of orchids, especially epiphytic orchids. To compare differences between fungal and bacterial communities between epiphytic and terrestrial roots we investigated a hemiepiphytic orchid, Vanilla planifolia from four Mexican farms in 2014. We used Illumina sequencing to sequence the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region 2 for fungi, and separately sequenced the 16S v4 region for bacteria and archaea.