Fungal endophytes play a vital role in plant health and evolution. Fungal endophyte diversity and functionality in carnivorous plants in largely unknown. The introduction of Sarracenia purpurea to Europe provides an opportunity to study the impacts of native vs introduced habitat on endophyte community assemblies. Using high throughput sequencing methods this study aims to elucidate the endophyte communities of S. purpurea (and other carnivorous plants: Drosera, Dionaea, and Pinguicula) growing both in North America and introduced into the United Kingdom. This is the first time these methods have been used to study endophyte communities of carnivorous plants at a high level of detail, using the community composition data generated our research objectives were to understand 1) whether endophyte communities differ between S. purpurea across continents 2) how the endophytes of S. purpurea differ to other carnivorous and non-carnivorous plants growing in the same environment, and 3) explore the potential functions of fungal endophytes identified in S. purpurea using FunGuild analysis in R.

Collaborators: Brandon Shaw, Jon Millett, Erica Young

Funding: Central England NERC Training Alliance (CENTA), NERC Environmental Omics Facility (NEOF)