ILLUMINA MiSEQ METABARCODING OF MICROBIAL COMMUNITIES ASSOCIATED TO SAFFRON Alpine FIELDS INOCULATED WITH Mycorrhizal fungi.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) establish mutualistic symbiotic associations with plant roots and act as biofertilizers by enhancing plant nutrient and water uptake. There is limited information on AMF associations with Crocus sativus L. (saffron) and their effect on crop performances, spice quality and microbial soil communities associated to this cultivation. In this work we have characterized the microbial communities from soil samples collected in two Alpine experimental sites (Val d'Aosta, Italy) cultivated with saffron and inoculated with two Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungal (AMF) inocula: a single-species (Rhizophagus intraradices) or a mixture of two species (R. intraradices and Funneliformis mosseae). The microbial communities of 42 soil samples have been determined by Illumina MiSeq metabarcoding targetting both bacteria and fungi. This study was also designed to rank the relative efficiencies of two soil DNA extraction procedures on the characterization of these communities, which might be influenced by the method used to recover soil metagenomic DNA. The results obtained enabled us to help choosing the most appropriate soil DNA extraction procedureadapted to high-throughput sequencing. In particular microbial communities' diversity and composition associated to alpine saffron cultivated fields with or without AMF inoculation were analyzed.