Host rather than elevation drive the endophytic fungal community of alpine Rhododendron communities

Alpine mountain ecosystems are highly sensitive to global warming and threatened by climate change. Elevation gradients are frequently used as space-for-time surrogates to climate change in mountain ecosystems due to their corresponding to climate variables over short geographic distances. However, the distribution patterns of perennial woody plant endophytic fungal communities along elevations in this ecosystem and how elevation and host identity affect them remain unclear. In this work, we used Illumina Miseq DNA sequencing technology to study the rhizosphere soil, root, and leaf endophytic fungal community assembly and the relative importance of elevation and host identity on the endophytic fungal community composition of alpine Rhododendron communities across 3100-4100 m in Jiaozi Mountain, southwest of China.