Table 1.
Total number of fungal ITS sequences obtained per sample by pyrosequencing and its clustering at 97% similarity.
Fig 1.
Rarefaction curves for fungal OTUs clustering at 97% rRNA sequence similarity from the five niches of C. sativus.
Rarefaction curves represent more diversity in bulk soil during dormant stage as compared to rhizosphere and cormosphere. Curves represent sequences for bulk soil, cormosphere and rhizosphere during flowering and bulk and cormosphere during dormant stage of C. sativus.
Fig 2.
Jackknife dendrogram of fungal communities associated with bulk soil, cormosphere and rhizosphere during flowering stage and bulk soil and cormosphere during dormant stage of C. sativus.
The Jackknife tree depicts that the rhizosphere is phylogenetically similar to cormosphere during flowering stage than other samples.
Fig 3.
Heatmap of top 20 fungal genera of bulk soil, cormosphere and rhizosphere during flowering and bulk and cormosphere during dormant stage of C. sativus.
The heatmap depicts the relative abundance of top 20 fungal genera (y axis) across the 5 samples analysed (x axis). The heatmap colors represent the relative abundance of fungal genera within each sample. Square colors shifted towards bright red indicate higher abundance. The relative abundance values of each genus for each sample are reported in S2 and S3 Tables. The heat map indicates dynamic shift in fungal diversity across belowground organs of plant and also at two different growth phases.
Table 2.
Chao1 and Shannon diversity indices of five different niches during two growth stages.
Fig 4.
Comparison of relative abundance of fungal phyla in bulk soil, rhizosphere and cormosphere during flowering and dormant stage.
The comparison indicates the dominance of Zygomycota in rhizosphere and cormosphere (dormant stage), Basidiomycota in cormosphere (Flowering stage) and Ascomycota in bulk soil during both stages.
Fig 5.
Relative abundance of fungal genera in the bulk soil, cormosphere and rhizosphere during flowering stage and bulk soil and cormosphere during dormant stage of C. sativus.
During flowering stage, Pseudogymnoascus (30.54%) was dominant in bulk soil, Rhizopus (46.62%) in rhizosphere and yet–to–be–cultivated Basidiomycota fungi (92.6%) in cormosphere. Yet-to-be-cultivated Ascomycota fungi were dominant in Bulk soil = 57.50% and cormosphere = 99.7% during dormant stage.
Fig 6.
Venn Diagrams reporting the number of OTUs shared among investigated C. sativus sample types A) bulk soil, cormosphere and rhizosphere during flowering stage. B) bulk soil and cormosphere during dormant stage C) cormosphere during flowering and dormant stage. During flowering stage, out of total 235 OTUs, only 13 OTUs were shared by all the three niches whereas during dormant stage, only 10 OTUs were common out of 115 OTUs. Total of 105 OTUs were catalogued from cormosphere during two growth stages out of which only 7 OTUs were common.
Fig 7.
Relative abundance of fungal species in the bulk soil, cormosphere and rhizosphere during flowering stage and bulk soil and cormosphere during dormant stage of C. sativus.
Fig 8.
Dominance pattern of fungal community in each of niche during two growth stages.
During flowering stage, dominance of Rhizopus arrhizus (Zygomycota phylum) in rhizosphere, Pseudogymnoascus roseus (Ascomycota phylum) in bulk soil was observed whereas in the cormosphere, the sequences belonging to dominant Basidiomycota phylum could not be classified upto genera or species level. During dormant stage, Rhizopus arrhizus (Zygomycota phylum) was dominant in cormosphere whereas in the bulk soil the sequences belonging to dominant Ascomycota phylum could not be classified upto genera or species level. In the figure, P represents phylum, G represents genus and S represents species of fungi.