Sarracenia pitcher plant‐associated microbial communities differ primarily by host species across a longitudinal gradient

Abstract

Plant-associated microbial communities can profoundly affect plant health and success, and research is still uncovering factors driving the assembly of these communities. Here, we examine how geography versus host species affects microbial community structure and differential abundances of individual taxa. We use metabarcoding to characterize the bacteria and eukaryotes associated with five, often cooccurring species of Sarracenia pitcher plants (Sarraceniaceae) and three natural hybrids along the longitudinal gradient of the U.S. Gulf Coast, as well as samples from S. purpurea in Massachusetts. To tease apart the effects of geography versus host species, we focus first on sites with co-occurring species and then on species located across different sites. Our analyses show that bacterial and eukaryotic community structures are clearly and consistently influenced by host species identity, with geographic factors also playing a role. Naturally occurring hybrids appear to also host unique communities, which are in some ways intermediate between their parent species. We see significant effects of geography (site and longitude), but these generally explain less of the variation among pitcher communities. Overall, in Sarracenia pitchers, host plant phenotype significantly affects the pitcher microbiomes and other associated organisms.

Drought-resistant trait of different crop genotypes determines assembly patterns of soil and phyllosphere microbial communities

“…Cregger et al found that the microbiomes largely differed across larger plant habitat types ( 46 ). Heil et al’s study also concluded that the identity of the host species has a consistent effect on bacterial community structures ( 47 ). We conclude that different niches in the crop exert specific selection pressures, resulting in colonization by different groups of microbes.…”

The Microbiome and Metatranscriptome of a Panel from theSarraceniaMapping Population Reveal Complex Assembly and Function Involving Host Influence

“…In their natural habitats, the microbiome diversity diverged among the Sarracenia host species (Heil et al 2022). In this study, we detected statistically significant differences in the structure of the pitcher microbiome communities among the parental species and their F1 and F2 genotypes under the same greenhouse conditions.…”

“…The bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes that reside in pitcher have been described by organismal methods (Ellison et al 2003b; Baiser et al 2013) and by environmental sequencing (Adlassnig et al 2011; Boyer and Carter 2011; Koopman and Carstens 2011). Multiple studies have explored the impact of the Sarracenia host plant on the microbiome assembly by comparing the microbial communities in natural and artificial pitchers (Koopman et al 2010; Bittleston et al; Ellison et al 2021; Grothjan and Young 2022), as well as among various Sarracenia species (Heil et al 2022). These studies concluded that Sarracenia may play an active role in shaping the structure of their microbiome.…”