The carnivorous pale pitcher plant harbors diverse, distinct, and time-dependent bacterial communities.

ABSTRACT: The ability of American carnivorous pitcher plants (Sarracenia) to digest insect prey is facilitated by microbial associations. Knowledge of the details surrounding this interaction has been limited by our capability to characterize bacterial diversity in this system. To describe microbial diversity within and between pitchers of one species, Sarracenia alata, and to explore how these communities change over time as pitchers accumulate and digest insect prey, we collected and analyzed environmental sequence tag (454 pyrosequencing) and genomic fingerprint (automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis and terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism) data. Microbial richness associated with pitcher plant fluid is high; more than 1,000 unique phylogroups were identified across at leas

SUBMITTER: Koopman MM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2838028 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature