Synthetic microbiota reveal priority effects and keystone strains in the Arabidopsis phyllosphere
Abstract
Multicellular organisms, including plants, are colonized by microorganisms, some of which are beneficial to growth and health. The assembly rules for establishing plant microbiota are not well understood, and neither is the extent to which their members interact. We conducted drop-out and late introduction experiments by inoculating Arabidopsis thaliana with synthetic communities from a resource of 62 native bacterial strains to test how arrival order shapes community structure. As a read-out we tracked the relative abundance of all strains in the phyllosphere of individual plants. Our results showed that community assembly is historically contingent and subject to priority effects. Missing strains could, to various degrees, invade an already established microbiota, which was itself resistant and remained largely unaffected by latecomers. Additionally, our results indicate that individual strains of Proteobacteria (Sphingomonas, Rhizobium) and Actinobacteria (Microbacterium, Rhodococcus) have the greatest potential to affect community structure as keystone species. Show more
Permanent link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000368530Publication status
publishedExternal links
Journal / series
Nature Ecology & EvolutionVolume
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
SpringerSubject
Bacteria; Microbial communities; Microbial ecologyOrganisational unit
09583 - Sunagawa, Shinichi / Sunagawa, Shinichi
03740 - Vorholt, Julia / Vorholt, Julia
Funding
668991 - Structure function relationships of the phyllosphere microbiota (EC)
Notes
It was possible to publish this article open access thanks to a Swiss National Licence with the publisher.More
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