Metagenomic Characterization Reveals Pronounced Seasonality in the Diversity and Structure of the Phyllosphere Bacterial Community in a Mediterranean Ecosystem.

ABSTRACT: We explore how the phyllosphere microbial community responds to a very seasonal environment such as the Mediterranean. For this, we studied the epiphytic bacterial community of a Mediterranean ecosystem in summer and winter, expecting to detect seasonal differences at their maximum. With high-throughput sequencing (HTS), we detected the operational taxonomic units (OTUs) present in the phyllosphere and also in the surrounding air. The epiphytic community is approximately five orders of magnitude denser than the airborne one and is made almost exclusively by habitat specialists. The two communities differ considerably but Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria are dominant in both. Of the five most abundant phyllosphere OTUs, two were closely related to Sphingomonas strains, one to Met

SUBMITTER: Vokou D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6920919 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature