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Seasonal Patterns Contribute More Towards Phyllosphere Bacterial Community Structure than Short-Term Perturbations

  • Plant Microbe Interactions
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Abstract

Phyllosphere microorganisms are sensitive to fluctuations in wind, temperature, solar radiation, and rain. However, recent explorations of patterns in phyllosphere communities across time often focus on seasonal shifts and leaf senescence without measuring the contribution of environmental drivers and leaf traits. Here, we focus on the effects of rain on the phyllosphere bacterial community of the wetland macrophyte broadleaf cattail (Typha latifolia) across an entire year, specifically targeting days before and 1, 3, and 5 days after rain events. To isolate the contribution of precipitation from other factors, we covered a subset of plants to shield them from rainfall. We used targeted Illumina sequencing of the V4 region of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene to characterize phyllosphere community composition. Rain events did not have a detectable effect on phyllosphere community richness or evenness regardless of whether the leaves were covered from rain or not, suggesting that foliar microbial communities are robust to such disturbances. While climatic and leaf-based variables effectively modeled seasonal trends in phyllosphere diversity and composition, they provided more limited explanatory value at shorter time scales. These findings underscore the dominance of long-term seasonal patterns related to climatic variation as the main factor influencing the phyllosphere community.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge Kristin Warner and Jessie Smith for their help in the collection and laboratory work associated with this project.

Sequence Data

The sequence data reported are available in the SRA database under the project accession number PRJNA487794.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Mississippi, Shoemaker Hall, University, St. Cloud, MS, 38677-1848, USA

    Bram W. G. Stone & Colin R. Jackson

  2. Center for Ecosystem Science and Society, Science Lab Facility, Northern Arizona University, Building 17, Flagstaff, AZ, 86011-5620, USA

    Bram W. G. Stone

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  1. Bram W. G. Stone
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Correspondence to Bram W. G. Stone.

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Significance

This research considers the importance of both short-term environmental variation and seasonal patterns in phyllosphere bacterial assembly more directly than in previous work. Recent next-generation sequencing studies of the phyllosphere microbial community across seasonal boundaries have shown clear shifts in composition and diversity following leaf senescence. However, these studies have not effectively investigated how factors such as rain, wind, solar radiation, and temperature interact with leaf senescence in driving community composition changes. This work advances the field by shedding light into these causative factors as they affect the foliar plant microbiome. Understanding the development of bacterial epiphyte communities in response to these drivers forms a significant and original contribution to our understanding of microbial dynamics in the plant phyllosphere. In addition, we apply a machine learning regression model to determine the importance of multiple correlated climatic variables.

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Stone, B.W.G., Jackson, C.R. Seasonal Patterns Contribute More Towards Phyllosphere Bacterial Community Structure than Short-Term Perturbations. Microb Ecol 81, 146–156 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-020-01564-z

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