Fungal diversity in the rhizosphere of endemic plant species of Tenerife (Canary Islands): relationship to vegetation zones and environmental factors

Knowledge about fungal diversity scaling relationships relative to that of plants is important to understand ecosystem functioning. Tenerife Island, a natural laboratory to study terrestrial biodiversity, is represented by six different vegetation zones characterized by specific abiotic conditions and plant communities with a high proportion of endemic plants. Little is known about the biodiversity of associated fungi. To understand the relationship between plant and fungal communities, we analysed soil/rhizosphere fungi from all vegetation zones. From 12 sampling points dispersed on the whole island, molecular analysis of fungal communities was determined by single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis using universal and specific primers for Trichoderma. The highly diverse fungal communities were mainly characterized by ectomycorrhiza-forming Basidiomycota and a high proportion of yet-unidentified species. Besides, Trichoderma-specific SSCP resulted in low diversity of mainly cosmopolitan species, for example Hypocrea lixii/T. harzianum. The dominance of T. harzianum was confirmed by cultivation. All Trichoderma isolates show an extraordinarily high antagonistic potential towards different groups of plant pathogens, supporting the hypothesis of extensive colonization by highly competitive Trichoderma species from the continent. In contrast, biodiversity patterns of the whole fungal and plant communities follow the same ecological rules. Furthermore, a high statistical correlation between fungal communities and the main environmental factors, temperature and precipitation, was found.