The pollen virome of wild plants and its association with floral trait variation and land use

Pollen is a unique vehicle for viral spread. Pollen-associated viruses hitchhike on or within pollen grains and are transported to other plants by pollinators. They are deposited on flowers and have a direct pathway into the plant and next generation via seeds. To discover the diversity of pollen-associated viruses and identify contributing landscape and floral features, we performed a species-level metagenomic survey of pollen from wild, visually asymptomatic plants, located in one of four regions in the United States of America varying in land use. We identified many known and novel pollen-associated viruses, half belonging to the Bromoviridae, Partitiviridae, and Secoviridae viral families, but many families are represented. Across the regions, species harbored more viruses when surrounded by less natural and more human-modified environments than the reverse. When examining the novel connection between virus richness and floral traits, we found that species with multiple, bilaterally symmetric flowers and smaller, spikier pollen harbored more viruses than those with opposite traits. The association of viral diversity with floral traits highlights the need to incorporate plant-pollinator interactions as a driver of pollen-associated virus transport into the study of plant-viral interactions.
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Torrey Botanical Society Fall 2022 Lecture Series
presented by Dr. Andrea Fetters, the Ohio State University
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00:00 Introduction
02:16 Lecture
36:55 Q&A
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