Data from: Double Lives: Transfer of fungal endophytes from leaves to woody substrates

Data and code from the forthcoming paper, submitted to <i>PeerJ</i> in September 2019. ABSTRACT: Fungal endophytes are a ubiquitous feature of plants, yet for many fungi the benefits of endophytism are still unknown. The Foraging Ascomycete Hypothesis (FAH) proposes that saprotrophic fungi can utilize leaves as both as dispersal vehicles and as resource havens during times of scarcity. The presence of saprophytes in leaf endophyte communities has been previously observed but their ability to transfer to extra-foliar saprobic substrates has not been well-investigated. To assess this ability, we conducted a culture study by placing surface-sterilized leaves from single tropical angiosperm tree (Nectandra lineatifolia Mez) directly onto sterile wood fragments and incubating them for 6 weeks. Fungi from the wood were subsequently isolated in culture and identified by ITS sequences or morphology. 477 fungal isolates comprising 26 OTUs were cultured from the wood. Of these, 70.8% (82.3% of isolates) belong to saprotrophic genera according to the FUNGuild database. Furthermore, 27% of OTUs (6% of isolates) were basidiomycetes, an unusually high proportion compared to typical endophyte communities. Xylaria cubensis, although absent in our original isolations, formed anamorphic fruiting structures from the woody substrates. We introduce the term viaphyte (literally, “by way of plant”) to refer to fungi that undergo an interim stage as leaf endophytes and, after leaf senescence, colonize other sabrobic substrates via hyphal growth. Our results support the Foraging Ascomycete Hypothesis and suggest that viaphytism may play a significant role in the dispersal of fungal saprotrophs.