Lucie Miché, Alex Baumel, Pascal Mirleau, Laurence Affre, Isabelle Laffont-Schwob,
Mediterranean Institute of marine and continental Biodiversity and Ecology (IMBE – UMR CNRS 7263/IRD 237), Aix-Marseille Université, Pôle de l’Etoile, FST St Jérôme – case 441, 13397 Marseille cedex 20, France
With a floristic richness of exception, the Mediterranean coast is however heavily threatened by urban development and pollution. An example of this paradoxical situation is located south of Marseille (France): in the recently created Calanques National Park are found several endemic and very rare plant species like Astragalus tragacantha (Fabaceae) that interface pollution from abandoned industrial sites and/or polluted sea sprays from urban effluents.
Knowing that contaminated sites are generally poor in nutrients and contain a highly altered soil structure, microbial root symbionts like mycorrhizal fungi and nodulating bacteria are suspected to play an important role in vegetation establishment. But very little is known about the ecology of this endangered plant species.
In this context, the aim of our work will be to decipher the symbiotic microbial communities that are associated to A. tragacantha roots, according to a gradient of pollution that the plant naturally encounters. For this purpose, NGS technologies (Illumina) will be used.
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