Bacterial Succession and Community Dynamics of the Emerging Leaf Phyllosphere in Spring
Wenke Smets, Lucia Maria Spada, Isabella Gandolfi, Karen Wuyts, Marie Legein, Babette Muyshondt, Roeland Samson, Andrea Franzetti, Sarah Lebeer
Abstract
Improving our understanding of phyllosphere ecology is key in successfully applying bacterial biological agents or modulating the leaf microbiome in order to achieve valuable ecosystem services, such as plant protection, plant growth, air purification, and developing a healthy human immune system. Modulation of the phyllosphere microbiome in the field works only with variable success. To improve the impact of our applications in the field, a better understanding of the ecological principles governing phyllosphere dynamics is required. This exploratory study demonstrates how the combination of different analyses of a chronosequence of bacterial communities can provide new ecological insights. With a limited number of sampled trees, we demonstrated different indications of ecological succession of bacterial communities in the leaves and observed a potential impact of intensely trafficked land use becoming apparent in the leaf bacterial communities approximately 3 weeks after leaf emergence, consisting of a separate stage in community development.