Temporal fluctuations in the pseudomonad population associated with sugar beet leaves

Ellis, Richard J.

doi:10.1016/s0168-6496(98)00120-2

Cited by 17 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 35 publications

(57 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Such laboratory studies help explain the very high rates of acquisition of indigenous mercury resistance plasmids by a genetically marked strain of P. fluorescens after it was introduced onto plant surfaces (65). Given that the communities of bacteria on plants undergo substantial compositional changes during a growing season (24,62,65,113) and that epiphytic bacterial species harbor a diversity of plasmids (63,64,110,111), the potential for extensive mixing of genes in these communities seems large. Together, these observations indicate that compared to other habitats, such as the soil, rates of plasmid transfer on leaves are very high and may make the genetic and phenotypic stability of inocula introduced onto plants unpredictable with time.…”

Section: Interactions Between Bacteria On Plantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microbiology of the Phyllosphere

Lindow

Brandl

2003

Appl Environ Microbiol

1,797

1,418

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

2The above-ground parts of plants are normally colonized by a variety of bacteria, yeasts, and fungi. While a few microbial species can be isolated from within plant tissues, many more are recovered from the surfaces of healthy plants. The aerial habitat colonized by these microbes is termed the phyllosphere, and the inhabitants are called epiphytes. While there has been some investigation of the colonists of buds and flowers (1, 48), most work on phyllosphere microbiology has focused on leaves, a more dominant aerial plant structure. Bacteria are by far the most numerous colonists of leaves, often being found in numbers averaging 10 6 to 10 7 cells/cm 2 (up to 10 8 cells/g) of leaf (1,7,41). Because of their numerical dominance on leaves, and because more information is available on the process of bacterial colonization of leaves, we focus on this group of microbes in this review.Compared to most other bacterial habitats, there has been relatively little examination of phyllosphere microbiology. This is somewhat surprising given the abundance of plants in the world and the roles of various phyllosphere bacteria in the important processes discussed below. Leaves constitute a very large microbial habitat. It is estimated that the terrestrial leaf surface area that might be colonized by microbes is about 6.4 ϫ 10 8 km 2 (83). Given the large number of bacteria on leaves in temperate regions of the world and that populations in tropical regions are probably even larger, the planetary phyllosphere bacterial population may be as large as 10 26 cells (83). Clearly, in aggregate, these bacteria are sufficiently numerous to contribute in many processes of importance to global processes, as well as to the behavior of the individual plants on which they live.In the following sections we review available information on the identities and properties of the bacterial colonists of plant surfaces as well as describe the nature of the leaf surface habitat that these bacteria colonize. We emphasize the results of studies using new molecular and microscopic tools that have provided new insights into both the identity and the behavior of epiphytes, as well as into the nature of the plant surfaces that they inhabit. Also, we review recent studies of the interactions of various epiphytic bacteria with plants, which suggest that there is much more interaction between them than in a strict commensalistic relationship, in which they have been traditionally considered to coexist. The interactions that occur between bacteria on leaves have also received considerable attention. We attempt to illustrate how new approaches to defining the nature of leaf surface habitats have helped us to understand the behavior and interactions of epiphytic bacteria as well as why leaves are a particularly suitable habitat for exploring processes in microbial ecology. More comprehensive reviews of phyllosphere microbiology also address other important features of this interesting association (1,7,8,41,47,55,73). MICROBIAL COMMUNITIES ON LEAVESThe microbial ...

show abstract

Section: Interactions Between Bacteria On Plantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microbiology of the Phyllosphere

Lindow

Brandl

2003

Appl Environ Microbiol

1,797

1,418

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Based on cultivation-dependent methods, microbial communities in the phyllosphere have been described to be variable over time, in space, and across different plant species (21,22). Therefore, DGGE analyses were performed to assess this variation in our field samples.…”

Section: Microbial Community Compositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community proteogenomics reveals insights into the physiology of phyllosphere bacteria

Delmotte

Knief

Chaffron

et al. 2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

777

656

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Aerial plant surfaces represent the largest biological interface on Earth and provide essential services as sites of carbon dioxide fixation, molecular oxygen release, and primary biomass production. Rather than existing as axenic organisms, plants are colonized by microorganisms that affect both their health and growth. To gain insight into the physiology of phyllosphere bacteria under in situ conditions, we performed a culture-independent analysis of the microbiota associated with leaves of soybean, clover, and Arabidopsis thaliana plants using a metaproteogenomic approach. We found a high consistency of the communities on the 3 different plant species, both with respect to the predominant community members (including the alphaproteobacterial genera Sphingomonas and Methylobacterium) and with respect to their proteomes. Observed known proteins of Methylobacterium were to a large extent related to the ability of these bacteria to use methanol as a source of carbon and energy. A remarkably high expression of various TonB-dependent receptors was observed for Sphingomonas. Because these outer membrane proteins are involved in transport processes of various carbohydrates, a particularly large substrate utilization pattern for Sphingomonads can be assumed to occur in the phyllosphere. These adaptations at the genus level can be expected to contribute to the success and coexistence of these 2 taxa on plant leaves. We anticipate that our results will form the basis for the identification of unique traits of phyllosphere bacteria, and for uncovering previously unrecorded mechanisms of bacteria-plant and bacteria-bacteria relationships.metaproteomics ͉ methylotrophy ͉ plant phyllosphere ͉ Pseudomonas ͉ Sphingomonas F or terrestrial plants, the phyllosphere represents the interface between the above-ground parts of plants and the air. Conservative estimates indicate that the roughly 1 billion square kilometers of worldwide leaf surfaces host more than 10 26 bacteria, which are the most abundant colonizers of this habitat (1, 2). The overall microbiota in this ecosystem is thus sufficiently large to have an impact on the global carbon and nitrogen cycles. Additionally, the phyllosphere inhabitants influence their hosts at the level of the individual plants. To a large extent, interest in phyllosphere microbiology has been driven by investigations on plant pathogens. Their spread, colonization, survival, and pathogenicity mechanisms have been the subject of numerous studies (2). Much less understood are nonpathogenic microorganisms that inhabit the phyllosphere. The composition of the phyllosphere microbiota has been analyzed in only a few studies by cultivation-independent methods (e.g., refs. 3-5); however, such methods are essential in light of the yet uncultivated majority of bacteria existing in nature (6), or more specifically on plant leaves (7). Not only their identity, but in particular the physiological properties of phyllosphere bacteria, their adaptations to the habitat, and their potential role (e.g., with res...

show abstract

“…The most commonly found epiphytic residents are bacteria and fungi. The communities that these microbes form on leaves can vary dramatically from one leaf to another and undergo constant change in both size and composition (2)(3)(4)(5)(6). Microbes may arrive to or depart from a leaf surface through the action of rain, wind, or insects (7)(8)(9)(10).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Appetite of an epiphyte: Quantitative monitoring of bacterial sugar consumption in the phyllosphere

Leveau

Lindow

2001

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

310

289

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We report here the construction, characterization, and application of a bacterial bioreporter for fructose and sucrose that was designed to monitor the availability of these sugars to microbial colonizers of the phyllosphere. Plasmid pPfruB-gfp[AAV] carries the Escherichia coli fruB promoter upstream from the gfp[AAV] allele that codes for an unstable variant of green fluorescent protein (GFP). In Erwinia herbicola, this plasmid brings about the accumulation of GFP fluorescence in response to both fructose and sucrose. Cells of E. herbicola (pP fruB-gfp[AAV]) were sprayed onto bean plants, recovered from leaves at various time intervals after inoculation, and analyzed individually for GFP content by quantitative analysis of digital microscope images. We observed a positive correlation between single-cell GFP accumulation and ribosomal content as determined by fluorescence in situ hybridization, indicating that foliar growth of E. herbicola occurred at the expense of fructose and͞or sucrose. One hour after inoculation, nearly all bioreporter cells appeared to be actively engaged in fructose consumption. This fraction dropped to approximately 11% after 7 h and to Ϸ1% a day after inoculation. This pattern suggests a highly heterogeneous availability of fructose to individual E. herbicola cells as they colonize the phyllosphere. We estimated that individual cells were exposed to local initial fructose abundances ranging from less than 0.15 pg fructose to more than 4.6 pg.

show abstract

Temporal fluctuations in the pseudomonad population associated with sugar beet leaves

Cited by 17 publications

References 35 publications

Microbiology of the Phyllosphere

Microbiology of the Phyllosphere

Community proteogenomics reveals insights into the physiology of phyllosphere bacteria

Appetite of an epiphyte: Quantitative monitoring of bacterial sugar consumption in the phyllosphere

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About