Differential responses of bacteria and fungi in the rhizoplane and endosphere of aerial roots of Cissus verticillata

Meng, Yuanyuan

ECOSPHERE

2026

17

1

Landrein, S

All plant organs have the potential to harbor microbial communities and each organ may form unique niches for specialized microbial communities. There have been very few detailed investigations of microbiomes within a single plant organ along different developmental stages. Here, we investigated the bacterial and fungal communities associated with the endosphere and rhizoplane of primary aerial roots, mature aerial roots, and subterranean parts of mature aerial roots of Cissus verticillata. Our results showed that the proportions of dominant bacterial and fungal genera varied across the three aerial root types both for the endosphere and for the rhizoplane. For the endosphere bacteria, the highest diversity indices were observed in subterranean aerial roots, while mature aerial roots had a higher rhizoplane bacteria diversity. For fungal diversity indices, mature aerial roots had the highest richness for both endosphere and rhizoplane fungi. The study also found that the microbial assemblage composition of each aerial root type was distinctly unique. Generally, our network analysis revealed that fungi had higher network property values compared to bacteria. Additionally, the rhizoplane had higher network property values than the endosphere, particularly within the fungal community. Furthermore, bacterial functions were similar across the three aerial root types, which suggests the stability of bacterial functions. By contrast, considerable shifts in the relative abundance of fungal functional groups across aerial root development were observed. Additionally, fungi and bacteria show differential responses to three aerial root types. This study provides a new perspective for understanding the characteristics of plant aerial root microbial communities along developmental stages.