Western Oregon is home to native Rhododendron species and is the center for cultivated
Rhododendron production in the United States. These Rhododendron spp. are known to
be infected with fungal endophytes. However, the community structure of these
endophytes in native and cultivated Rhododendron is poorly understood. Our study
targeted the foliar fungal endophyte communities of two native Rhododendron spp. and
two non-native commercially cultivated Rhododendron varieties. Parallel culturedependent
(fungal isolation and identification based on ITS sequencing) and cultureindependent
sequencing approaches (metagenomic sequencing of the ITS region using
454 pyrosequencing) were employed, and results provided evidence of distinctly different
community structure in each host species. Additionally, results indicated higher diversity
among cultivated and nursery grown Rhododendron. This suggests that the close
proximity of the nurseries sampled to the forest environment allows exposure to two
distinct sources of endophyte infection. Together, our results show the importance of host
identity and environment in structuring the associated endophyte communities. / Graduation date: 2013
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/38181 |
| Date | 21 March 2013 |
| Creators | Raizen, Nathaniel L. |
| Contributors | Grunwald, Niklaus J. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
| Relation | Oregon Explorer |
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