Targeted gene survey from fungal communities inhabiting Quercus macrocarpa phyllosphere

This project estimates fungal species richness and diversity in temperate deciduous trees and tests hypotheses on urbanization's effects on the richness and structure of the leaf associated communities. This study targeted the fungal communities inhabiting the phyllosphere of Quercus macrocarpa in urban and non-urban environments within and outside of Manhattan, Kansas. The study combined massively parallel 454 sequencing of the Internal Transcribed Spacer 1 (ITS1) amplicons with DNA tagging to compare fungal species richness, diversity and the community composition among conspecific trees located in urban and adjacent rural environments. The study uses an experimental design with the land use as main effect and the sites nested within the land use. The data clearly show that fungal phyllosphere communities are diverse and that richness and diversity were significantly and substantially lower in the urban environment. FJ756950-FJ763141 are ribosomal RNA sequences associated with this project.