Michael Waud

TL;DR: The results indicate that primer pairs ITS3/ITS4OF and ITS86F/ ITS4, targeting the internal transcribed spacer‐2 (ITS‐2) region, outperformed other tested primer pairs in terms of number of reads, number of operational taxonomic units recovered from the artificial community and number of different orchid mycorrhizal associating families detected in the orchid samples.

TL;DR: It is suggested that mycorrhizal fungi are important factors driving niche partitioning in terrestrial orchids and may therefore contribute to orchid coexistence.

TL;DR: This study used 454 amplicon pyrosequencing to investigate the architecture of the network between mycorrhizal fungi and 20 orchid species co-occurring in a species-rich Mediterranean grasslands, suggesting the existence of isolated groups of interacting species.

TL;DR: The experiments revealed that the relative importance of the microbiota for the hosts’ fitness varied according to dietary conditions, and indicated that the microbiota can be a potentially important factor in determining host responses to changes in dietary conditions.

TL;DR: The results clearly showed that recently diverged orchid species that occupy different habitats were characterized by significantly different mycorrhizal communities and call for more detailed experiments that aim at elucidating the contribution of habitat-specific adaptations in general and mycor Rhizal divergence in particular to the process of speciation in orchids.