Leaf side determines the relative importance of dispersal versus host filtering in the phyllosphere microbiome.

ABSTRACT: Leaves harbor distinct microbial communities that can have an important impact on plant health and microbial ecosystems worldwide. Nevertheless, the ecological processes that shape the composition of leaf microbial communities remain unclear, with previous studies reporting contradictory results regarding the importance of bacterial dispersal versus host selection. This discrepancy could be driven in part because leaf microbiome studies typically consider the upper and lower leaf surfaces as a single entity despite these habitats possessing considerable anatomical differences. We characterized the composition of bacterial phyllosphere communities from the upper and lower leaf surfaces across 24 plant species. Leaf surface pH and stomatal density were found to shape phyllosphere community c

SUBMITTER: Smets W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10470611 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature