Fungal diversity affecting the production of the desert truffle Terfezia claveryi Chatin in productive and non-productive plants by metagenomics approach

Recently, some strategies focused on the control of climatic parameters or the study of beneficial native bacteria, have been carried out in order to improve the desert truffle cultivation between Helianthemum almeriense x Terfezia claveryi [1]. In order to increase the field production of ascocarps is necessary to know how the microorganisms interact with the soil and rhizosphere, and whether they interfere in the symbiosis and in the fruiting of this fungus. Currently, the development of new technologies, such as high-performance sequencing technologies and new computational methods to collect and extract information from complex data sets, has allowed us to achieve our purpose through metagenomics approach. This approach has already been applied to unravel the fungal and bacterial biodiversity associated with edible black and white truffle, Tuber magnatum and Tuber melanosporum, respectively [2], but there is not information on the same aspect in desert truffles. In this study, a total of 62 samples from soil and root in productive and non-productive plants of H. almeriense inoculated with T. claveryi, in a plantation 4-years-old (Murcia, Spain), were evaluated and fungal diversity has been analyzed using the sequencing of ITS2 rDNA region. Preliminary results are discussed accordingly.