Abstract
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 vines (the control condition), vines with esca symptoms, and vines subjected to water deficit 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 and 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 multistress conditions. [Formula: see text] Copyright © 2026 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license .
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Claims 6
Claim · model-written summary
Drought significantly decreased fungal diversity in healthy trunk wood compared with well-watered asymptomatic vines.
Verbatim
e1“In the trunk, drought significantly decreased fungal diversity in healthy wood and increased the abundance of wood pathogens (e.g., Phaeomoniella chlamydospora and Botryosphaeria dothidea)”
e2“well-watered asymptomatic vines (the control condition)”
t0“Differential Impacts of Drought and Esca Expression on Ascomycota Fungi in the Trunks and Young Organs of Mature Grapevines”
Claim · model-written summary
Drought increased the abundance of wood pathogens in the trunk, including Phaeomoniella chlamydospora and Botryosphaeria dothidea.
- Taxon
- Mature Grapevinest0
- Organ / stage
- trunke1
- Treatment
- droughte1
- Interactor
- Phaeomoniella chlamydosporaPhaeomoniella chlamydosporae1pathogen
- Second interactor
- Botryosphaeria dothidea
_Cesati_%26_DeNotaris_661320.jpg?width=60)
Botryosphaeria dothideae1pathogen - Outcome
- abundance of wood pathogense1
- Direction
- increasede1
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
_Cesati_%26_DeNotaris_661320.jpg?width=500)
Verbatim
e1“In the trunk, drought significantly decreased fungal diversity in healthy wood and increased the abundance of wood pathogens (e.g., Phaeomoniella chlamydospora and Botryosphaeria dothidea)”
t0“Differential Impacts of Drought and Esca Expression on Ascomycota Fungi in the Trunks and Young Organs of Mature Grapevines”
Claim · model-written summary
In young organs, esca expression decreased species richness and diversity of the Ascomycota community more than drought did.
Verbatim
e3“In young organs, esca expression decreased the species richness and diversity of the Ascomycota community to a greater extent than drought”
t0“Differential Impacts of Drought and Esca Expression on Ascomycota Fungi in the Trunks and Young Organs of Mature Grapevines”
Claim · model-written summary
Plants with esca symptoms had a smaller relative proportion of healthy wood than control plants.
Verbatim
e4“We also found that the relative proportion of healthy wood was smaller in plants with esca symptoms than in control plants”
t0“Differential Impacts of Drought and Esca Expression on Ascomycota Fungi in the Trunks and Young Organs of Mature Grapevines”
Claim · model-written summary
Drought did not increase wood degradation or esca expression in the trunk, although it increased pathogen abundance there.
- Taxon
- Mature Grapevinest0
- Organ / stage
- trunke5
- Treatment
- droughte5
- Outcome
- wood degradation and esca expressione5
- Direction
- did not increasee5
Not reportedComparator
Verbatim
e5“Thus, drought increased Ascomycota pathogen abundance in the trunk but did not increase wood degradation and esca expression”
t0“Differential Impacts of Drought and Esca Expression on Ascomycota Fungi in the Trunks and Young Organs of Mature Grapevines”
Claim · model-written summary
The Ascomycota communities of trunks and younger organs clearly differed.
Verbatim
e6“The Ascomycota communities of trunks and younger organs clearly differed”
t0“Differential Impacts of Drought and Esca Expression on Ascomycota Fungi in the Trunks and Young Organs of Mature Grapevines”
The same questions in other papers
drought · molecular: expression · VitisPositive and negative results
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Claims are grouped by organism, treatment and what was measured or targeted. A paper counts as positive when any of its claims in the group is positive.