Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal succession in a long-lived perennial

It is difficult to understand why arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal communities change over time. The role of host identity confounds our understanding of successional changes in AM fungal communities because hosts exert strong selective pressure on their root-associated microbes. In this study we looked at the AM fungi associated with a long-lived perennial breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis (Parkinson) Fosberg) to see how AM communities change over the life span of a single, long-lived host. Using 454 high-throughput sequencing, we found evidence that older trees had more AM fungal taxa than younger trees and were associated with different AM fungal communities, but these differences were not apparent early in the life cycle. Older trees were dominated by species of Rhizophagus, whereas younger trees and genets were dominated by species of Glomus. Some taxa were only detected in older trees (e. g., Funneliformis) or genets (e. g., Racocetra and Scutellospora), indicating that certain AM fungal taxa may serve as indicators of the successional age of the fungal community. These results provide important information about a poorly studied system and give insight into how AM communities change over longer time scales.