Abstract
Pinus peuce Griseb is five-needle pine native in high-altitude montane habitats of the Balkans. The aim was to assess the diversity and composition of fungal communities associated with the soil, rootlets and living needles of P. peuce at three high-altitude forest sites with different edaphic conditions and stand characteristics in southeastern Montenegro. In total, 90 needle, 90 rootlet and 90 soil samples were sampled. DNA amplification using ITS2 rDNA as a marker and high-throughput sequencing resulted in 17,620 high-quality reads, representing 825 fungal taxa. There were 52.5% Basidiomycota, 43.9% Ascomycota and 3.6% Mucoromycotina. There were 118 unique fungal taxa in the rootlets, 230 in the soil and 113 in the needles, with 8 taxa were shared. The most common fungi in rootlets were Rhizopogon mohelensis (11.0%), Suillus sibiricus (8.4%), R. fallax (6.9%), in the soil – Phlebiopsis gigantea (5.1%), Tylospora asterophora (2.9%), Sollicocossima terricola (2.7%), and in the needles – Dothideomycetes sp. 3360_7 (17.6%), Dothideomycetes sp. 3360_10 (10.7%), Leotiomycetes sp. 3360_16 (6.5%). The results showed that the functional tissues and the rhizosphere soil of P. peuce were inhabited by a high diversity of fungi, which were largely specific to each particular substrate, while. the site conditions had only limited effect on associated fungal communities. Associated fungal communities were largely determined by the host tree species, substrate properties and functional capabilities of associated fungi.
