Repository logo

Infoscience

  • English
  • French
Log In
Logo EPFL, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne

Infoscience

  • English
  • French
Log In
  1. Home
  2. Academic and Research Output
  3. Journal articles
  4. Differential impacts of drought and esca expression on Ascomycota fungi in the trunks and young organs of mature grapevines
 
research article

Differential impacts of drought and esca expression on Ascomycota fungi in the trunks and young organs of mature grapevines

GASTOU, Pierre
•
BORTOLAMI, Giovanni  
•
FERRER, Nathalie
Show more
November 19, 2025
Phytobiomes Journal

Perennial plant decline is increasingly threatening the profitability and sustainability of agriculture and forestry worldwide. It results from intricate interactions between microbial communities, the plant host, and abiotic stressors. We investigated the effects of drought and esca disease on mature grapevine phytobiomes. Grapevines display no esca leaf symptoms during droughts, but the impacts of drought and esca expression on fungal communities and wood health in mature plants remain poorly understood. We studied 43 uprooted 30-year-old naturally infected vines in three experimental conditions: well-watered asymptomatic (Control) vines, vines with esca symptoms (Esca), and vines subjected to water deficit (WD) over two consecutive summers. We profiled trunk, cane, stem and petiole Ascomycota communities by DNA metabarcoding with primers specifically designed for grapevine trunk-associated Ascomycota, and quantified wood necrosis. The Ascomycota communities of trunks and younger organs clearly differed, and drought and esca had different impacts on the Ascomycota communities of perennial and young organs. In the trunk, drought significantly decreased fungal diversity in healthy wood and increased the abundance of wood pathogens (e.g. Phaeomoniella chlamydospora, Botryosphaeria dothidea). In young organs, esca expression decreased the species richness and diversity of the Ascomycota community to a greater extent than drought. We also found that the relative proportion of healthy wood was smaller in plants with esca symptoms than in control plants. Thus, drought increased Ascomycota pathogen abundance in the trunk but did not increase wood degradation and esca expression, highlighting the need to investigate the molecular basis of plant-microbiome interactions under multi-stress conditions.

  • Details
  • Metrics
Type
research article
DOI
10.1094/PBIOMES-07-25-0048-R
Scopus ID

2-s2.0-105024551748

Author(s)
GASTOU, Pierre

INRAE

BORTOLAMI, Giovanni  

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

FERRER, Nathalie

INRAE

GAMBETTA, Gregory A.

Ecophysiologie et Génomique Fonctionnelle de la Vigne

MORETTI, Samuele

INRAE

VALLANCE, Jessica

INRAE

DELMAS, Chloe E.L.

INRAE

Date Issued

2025-11-19

Published in
Phytobiomes Journal
Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
PERL  
Available on Infoscience
December 22, 2025
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/257196
Logo EPFL, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
  • Contact
  • infoscience@epfl.ch

  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Instagram
  • Follow us on LinkedIn
  • Follow us on X
  • Follow us on Youtube
AccessibilityLegal noticePrivacy policyCookie settingsEnd User AgreementGet helpFeedback

Infoscience is a service managed and provided by the Library and IT Services of EPFL. © EPFL, tous droits réservés