La face cachée de la dune : communautés fongiques du sol: dynamique, succession et interactions avec la végétation d’un écosystème dunaire côtier aux Îles de la Madeleine, Qc
Coastal dunes provide several key ecosystem services, such as erosion mitigation and protection of the littoral by forming a barrier against wind and wave action. These ecosystems also importantly contribute to water filtering, groundwater replenishment, maintenance of biodiversity, and have a cultural, aesthetic and recreational importance. Dune ecosystems are highly dynamic and characterized by stark ecological successional gradients. The sequence of plant communities along the gradient extends from upper beach to the foredune stabilized by pioneer species such as beach grass, which facilitates the establishment of other herbs, shrubs and eventually, trees. Plant growth and survival can be limited by environmental factors such as wind, salinity, drought and nutrient deficiency, and is therefore strongly linked to the presence of soil microorganisms. Soil fungi in particular are important plant symbionts and major regulators of organic matter decomposition, nutrient cycling and soil structure. Hence, they are key drivers of soil and vegetation dynamics, as well as important contributors to dune stabilisation. Still, the diversity and structure of soil fungal communities, as well as the mechanisms responsible for their ecological dynamic, remain incompletely understood.    In this thesis, I aimed to characterize fungal communities along a successional and edaphic gradient in a coastal dune in order to improve our understanding of soil dynamics in sand dunes ecosystems. I performed a comprehensive sampling of soils and aboveground vegetation at over 80 sites on a relic foredune plain. Soil fungi were characterized using high-throughput sequencing. A general description of soil fungal communities across dune zones was produced and, in addition to a taxonomic description, I assigned putative roles to all fungal genera to determine how variations in fungal community can be translated in functional changes. I recorded high level of fungal diversity (over 3400 operational taxonomic units) and described distinct communities along the successional and edaphic gradient. These results demonstrated the presence of taxonomically and functionally diverse communities across the dune sequence, including in the barren foredunes.  I also investigated the links between plant and fungal communities across the edaphic and successional gradient. These results showed a clear increase in plant species richness, as well as in the diversity of nutrient-acquisition strategies (belowground trait related to plant nutrition: arbuscular mycorrhizal, ectomycorrhizal, ericoid mycorrhizal, nitrogen-fixing or unspecialized). I also found a very strong correlation between aboveground vegetation and soil fungal communities, which both responded to soil physicochemical properties. Soil pH importantly shaped plant and fungal communities, and could act as an important environmental filter along this relic foredune plain. The coordinated changes in soil microbial and plant communities highlight the importance of aboveground-belowground linkages and of positive biotic interactions during ecological succession in nutrient-poor environments. Finally, I compared the ectomycorrhizal fungal communities associated with four co-occuring tree species in the forested zone of the relic foredune plain. High ectomycorrhizal fungal richness was observed across the four hosts, with a total of 200 ectomycorrhizal operational taxonomic units, mainly belonging to the Agaricomycetes. Network analysis did not detect modules (i.e. subgroups of interacting species), indicating a low level of specificity in these ectomycorrhizal associations. In addition, there were no differences in ectomycorrhizal diversity or community structure among the four tree species.  To conclude, I was able to describe diverse communities and distinct community structures across the dune sequence, for both plants and fungi.  Succession however seemed less pronounced in fungal communities compared to patterns observed in plants. These results fueled a reflection on the potential and perspectives, as well as the limitations, of high-throughput sequencing approaches in the field of microbial ecology.
Coastal dunes Ecological succession Soil microbiome Soil fungi Ectomycorhizal synbiosis Plant-fungi interactions High-throughput sequencing