[Doctoral Dissertation Defense Presentation]

(Microbial Diversity and Bioinformatics)

Time：2024. 4. 11 Thu. 14:00

Venue：Auditorium, 1st Floor, Interdisciplinary Research Building

Speaker：Mr. Pei-Feng Sun 
                     Ph.D. Candidate
                     ¹TIGP Biodiversity Program, Academia Sinica
                     ²Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica
                     ³Department of Life Science, National Taiwan Normal University

Title：The Role of Microbe Inside Drosera spatulata’s Mucilage

Host：Dr. Isheng Jason Tsai 

Abstract 
       Carnivorous plants secret digestive fluid for nutrient acquisition. Although the liquid provides extreme conditions with low pH value and hydrolytic enzymes, several studies found that microbial community inside the mucilage plays an important role for prey digestion. Drosera spatulata is a carnivorous plant that secretes mucilage to stick to insects. Its leaves are covered with “tentacles” ending in glandular heads. These heads include glandular cells which produce sticky mucilage. Unlike pitcher plants containing digestive fluid inside modified foliar structures , mucilage of D. spatulata is exposed to environment. External influences are especially important in determining the distribution and abundance of microorganisms. In this study, we characterised D. spatulata mucilage microbial communities from northern Taiwan by using amplicon sequencing. To identify the relationship between D. spatulata and microorganism, we inoculated microbes on D. spatulata and analyzed their gene expression. As the result, we found that the fungus Acrodontium crateriforme is the ecologically dominant species in D. spatulata mucilage. Based on the transcriptomes when encountering prey insects, we revealed a high degree of genetic co-option in each species during fungus-plant coexistence and digestion. Expression patterns of the holobiont during digestion further revealed synergistic effects in several gene families including fungal aspartic and sedolisin peptidases, facilitating the digestion of sundew’s prey, as well as transporters and dose-dependent responses in plant genes involved in jasmonate signalling pathway. This study shows that botanical carnivory is defined by multidimensional adaptations correlated with interspecies interactions.
 
Keywords: Acrodontium crateriforme, Drosera spatulata, interaction, mucilage, traps

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