Metagenomic Assessment Unravels Fungal Microbiota Associated to Grapevine Trunk Diseases

Grapevine trunk diseases (GTDs) are among the most important problems that affect longevity and productivity of vineyards in all major growing regions world. They slow-progression caused by several wood-inhabiting fungi with similar life cycles epidemiology. The simultaneous presence multiple pathogens a single plant together inconsistent GTDs symptoms expression, their isolation asymptomatic plants, absence effective treatments make these extremely complex to identify eradicate. Aiming gain better knowledge search sustainable alternatives limit development, present work studied fungal community structure associated symptomatic grapevines, following metagenomic approach. Two cultivars from Alentejo region different levels susceptibility were selected, namely, ‘Alicante Bouschet’ ‘Trincadeira’. Deep sequencing fungal-directed ITS1 amplicon led detection 258 taxa, including 10 previously described as responsible for GTDs. Symptomatic plants exhibited lower abundance GTDs-associated fungi, although significantly higher diversity those pathogens. Our results demonstrated intensified set on same plant. composition endophytic communities was according symptomatology it not affected cultivar. This study opens new perspectives relation grapevines.