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Wang Z, Jiang Y, Zhang M, Chu C, Chen Y, Fang S, Jin G, Jiang M, Lian JY, Li Y, Liu Y, Ma K, Mi X, Qiao X, Wang X, Wang X, Xu H, Ye W, Zhu L, Zhu Y, He F, Kembel SW. Diversity and biogeography of plant phyllosphere bacteria are governed by latitude-dependent mechanisms. THE NEW PHYTOLOGIST 2023; 240:1534-1547. [PMID: 37649282 DOI: 10.1111/nph.19235] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/04/2023] [Accepted: 08/03/2023] [Indexed: 09/01/2023]
Abstract
Predicting and managing the structure and function of plant microbiomes requires quantitative understanding of community assembly and predictive models of spatial distributions at broad geographic scales. Here, we quantified the relative contribution of abiotic and biotic factors to the assembly of phyllosphere bacterial communities, and developed spatial distribution models for keystone bacterial taxa along a latitudinal gradient, by analyzing 16S rRNA gene sequences from 1453 leaf samples taken from 329 plant species in China. We demonstrated a latitudinal gradient in phyllosphere bacterial diversity and community composition, which was mostly explained by climate and host plant factors. We found that host-related factors were increasingly important in explaining bacterial assembly at higher latitudes while nonhost factors including abiotic environments, spatial proximity and plant neighbors were more important at lower latitudes. We further showed that local plant-bacteria associations were interconnected by hub bacteria taxa to form metacommunity-level networks, and the spatial distribution of these hub taxa was controlled by hosts and spatial factors with varying importance across latitudes. For the first time, we documented a latitude-dependent importance in the driving factors of phyllosphere bacteria assembly and distribution, serving as a baseline for predicting future changes in plant phyllosphere microbiomes under global change and human activities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zihui Wang
- Département des Sciences Biologiques, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Québec, H2X 1Y4, Canada
- ECNU-Alberta Joint Lab for Biodiversity Study, Tiantong Forest Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, School of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200241, China
| | - Yuan Jiang
- State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Ecology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China
| | - Minhua Zhang
- ECNU-Alberta Joint Lab for Biodiversity Study, Tiantong Forest Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, School of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200241, China
| | - Chengjin Chu
- State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Ecology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China
| | - Yongfa Chen
- State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Ecology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China
| | - Shuai Fang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, 110016, China
| | - Guangze Jin
- Center for Ecological Research, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, 150040, China
| | - Mingxi Jiang
- Key Laboratory of Aquatic Botany and Watershed Ecology, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, China
| | - Ju-Yu Lian
- Key Laboratory of Vegetation Restoration and Management of Degraded Ecosystems, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510650, China
| | - Yanpeng Li
- Research Institute of Tropical Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Guangzhou, 510520, China
| | - Yu Liu
- ECNU-Alberta Joint Lab for Biodiversity Study, Tiantong Forest Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, School of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200241, China
| | - Keping Ma
- State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, China
| | - Xiangcheng Mi
- State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, China
| | - Xiujuan Qiao
- Key Laboratory of Aquatic Botany and Watershed Ecology, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, China
| | - Xihua Wang
- Zhejiang Tiantong Forest Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, School of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200241, China
| | - Xugao Wang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, 110016, China
| | - Han Xu
- Research Institute of Tropical Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Guangzhou, 510520, China
| | - Wanhui Ye
- Key Laboratory of Vegetation Restoration and Management of Degraded Ecosystems, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510650, China
| | - Li Zhu
- State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, China
| | - Yan Zhu
- State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, China
| | - Fangliang He
- ECNU-Alberta Joint Lab for Biodiversity Study, Tiantong Forest Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, School of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200241, China
- Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2H1, Canada
| | - Steven W Kembel
- Département des Sciences Biologiques, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Québec, H2X 1Y4, Canada
- ECNU-Alberta Joint Lab for Biodiversity Study, Tiantong Forest Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, School of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200241, China
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Demarquest G, Lajoie G. Bacterial endophytes of sugar maple leaves vary more idiosyncratically than epiphytes across a large geographic area. FEMS Microbiol Ecol 2023; 99:fiad079. [PMID: 37442613 DOI: 10.1093/femsec/fiad079] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/17/2023] [Revised: 07/04/2023] [Accepted: 07/12/2023] [Indexed: 07/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Bacteria from the leaf surface and the leaf tissue have been attributed with several beneficial properties for their plant host. Though physically connected, the microbial ecology of these compartments has mostly been studied separately such that we lack an integrated understanding of the processes shaping their assembly. We sampled leaf epiphytes and endophytes from the same individuals of sugar maple across the northern portion of its range to evaluate if their community composition was driven by similar processes within and across populations differing in plant traits and overall abiotic environment. Leaf compartment explained most of the variation in community diversity and composition across samples. Leaf epiphytic communities were driven more by host and site characteristics than endophytic communities, whose community composition was more idiosyncratic across samples. Our results suggest a greater importance of priority effects and opportunistic colonization in driving community assembly of leaf endophytes. Understanding the comparative assembly of bacterial communities at the surface and inside plant leaves may be particularly useful for leveraging their respective potential for improving the health of plants in natural and anthropized ecosystems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Garance Demarquest
- Institut de Recherche en Biologie Végétale, Université de Montréal, 4101 rue Sherbrooke E, H1X 2B2 Montréal, Canada
- Université de Rennes, Agro-Campus Ouest, 65 Rue de Saint-Brieuc, 35042 Rennes, France
| | - Geneviève Lajoie
- Institut de Recherche en Biologie Végétale, Université de Montréal, 4101 rue Sherbrooke E, H1X 2B2 Montréal, Canada
- Jardin Botanique de Montréal, 4101 rue Sherbrooke E, H1X 2B2 Montréal, Canada
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PhyloPlus: a Universal Tool for Phylogenetic Interrogation of Metagenomic Communities. mBio 2023; 14:e0345522. [PMID: 36645293 PMCID: PMC9973285 DOI: 10.1128/mbio.03455-22] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Phylogeny is a powerful tool that can be incorporated into quantitative descriptions of community diversity, yet its use has been limited largely due to the difficulty in constructing phylogenies which incorporate the wide genomic diversity of microbial communities. Here, we describe the development of a web portal, PhyloPlus, which enables users to generate customized phylogenies that may be applied to any bacterial or archaeal communities. We demonstrate the power of phylogeny by comparing metrics that employ phylogeny with those that do not when applied to data sets from two metagenomic studies (fermented food, n = 58; human microbiome, n = 60). This example shows how inclusion of all bacterial species identified by taxonomic classifiers (Kraken2 and Kaiju) made the phylogeny perfectly congruent to the corresponding classification outputs. Our phylogeny-based approach also enabled the construction of more constrained null models which (i) shed light into community structure and (ii) minimize potential inflation of type I errors. Construction of such null models allowed for the observation of under-dispersion in 44 (75.86%) food samples, with the metacommunity defined as bacteria that were found in different food matrices. We also observed that closely related species with high abundance and uneven distribution across different sites could potentially exaggerate the dissimilarity between phylogenetically similar communities if they were measured using traditional species-based metrics (Padj. = 0.003), whereas this effect was mitigated by incorporating phylogeny (Padj. = 1). In summary, our tool can provide additional insights into microbial communities of interest and facilitate the use of phylogeny-based approaches in metagenomic analyses. IMPORTANCE There has been an explosion of interest in how microbial diversity affects human health, food safety, and environmental functions among many other processes. Accurately measuring the diversity and structure of those communities is central to understanding their effects. Here, we describe the development of a freely available online tool, PhyloPlus, which allows users to generate custom phylogenies that may be applied to any data set, thereby removing a major obstacle to the application of phylogeny to metagenomic data analysis. We demonstrate that the genetic relatedness of the organisms within those communities is a critical feature of their overall diversity, and that using a phylogeny which captures and quantifies this diversity allows for much more accurate descriptions while preventing misleading conclusions based on estimates that ignore evolutionary relationships.
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Leducq JB, Sneddon D, Santos M, Condrain-Morel D, Bourret G, Cecilia Martinez-Gomez N, Lee JA, Foster JA, Stolyar S, Jesse Shapiro B, Kembel SW, Sullivan JM, Marx CJ. Comprehensive phylogenomics of Methylobacterium reveals four evolutionary distinct groups and underappreciated phyllosphere diversity. Genome Biol Evol 2022; 14:6652236. [PMID: 35906926 PMCID: PMC9364378 DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evac123] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/25/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Methylobacterium is a group of methylotrophic microbes associated with soil, fresh water, and particularly the phyllosphere, the aerial part of plants that has been well-studied in terms of physiology but whose evolutionary history and taxonomy are unclear. Recent work has suggested that Methylobacterium is much more diverse than thought previously, questioning its status as an ecologically and phylogenetically coherent taxonomic genus. However, taxonomic and evolutionary studies of Methylobacterium have mostly been restricted to model species, often isolated from habitats other than the phyllosphere, and have yet to utilize comprehensive phylogenomic methods to examine gene trees, gene content, or synteny. By analyzing 189 Methylobacterium genomes from a wide range of habitats, including the phyllosphere, we inferred a robust phylogenetic tree while explicitly accounting for the impact of horizontal gene transfer. We showed that Methylobacterium contains four evolutionarily distinct groups of bacteria (namely A, B, C, D), characterized by different genome size, GC content, gene content and genome architecture, revealing the dynamic nature of Methylobacterium genomes. In addition to recovering 59 described species, we identified 45 candidate species, mostly phyllosphere-associated, stressing the significance of plants as a reservoir of Methylobacterium diversity. We inferred an ancient transition from a free-living lifestyle to association with plant roots in Methylobacteriaceae ancestor, followed by phyllosphere association of three of the major groups (A, B, D), whose early branching in Methylobacterium history has been heavily obscured by HGT. Together, our work lays the foundations for a thorough redefinition of Methylobacterium taxonomy, beginning with the abandonment of Methylorubrum.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jean-Baptiste Leducq
- Université Laval - Quebec City (QC) Canada.,University of Idaho - Moscow (ID) US
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - B Jesse Shapiro
- Université de Montréal - Montreal (QC) Canada.,McGill University - Montreal (QC) Canada
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Lee JA, Stolyar S, Marx CJ. Aerobic Methoxydotrophy: Growth on Methoxylated Aromatic Compounds by Methylobacteriaceae. Front Microbiol 2022; 13:849573. [PMID: 35359736 PMCID: PMC8963497 DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.849573] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/06/2022] [Accepted: 02/16/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Pink-pigmented facultative methylotrophs have long been studied for their ability to grow on reduced single-carbon (C1) compounds. The C1 groups that support methylotrophic growth may come from a variety of sources. Here, we describe a group of Methylobacterium strains that can engage in methoxydotrophy: they can metabolize the methoxy groups from several aromatic compounds that are commonly the product of lignin depolymerization. Furthermore, these organisms can utilize the full aromatic ring as a growth substrate, a phenotype that has rarely been described in Methylobacterium. We demonstrated growth on p-hydroxybenzoate, protocatechuate, vanillate, and ferulate in laboratory culture conditions. We also used comparative genomics to explore the evolutionary history of this trait, finding that the capacity for aromatic catabolism is likely ancestral to two clades of Methylobacterium, but has also been acquired horizontally by closely related organisms. In addition, we surveyed the published metagenome data to find that the most abundant group of aromatic-degrading Methylobacterium in the environment is likely the group related to Methylobacterium nodulans, and they are especially common in soil and root environments. The demethoxylation of lignin-derived aromatic monomers in aerobic environments releases formaldehyde, a metabolite that is a potent cellular toxin but that is also a growth substrate for methylotrophs. We found that, whereas some known lignin-degrading organisms excrete formaldehyde as a byproduct during growth on vanillate, Methylobacterium do not. This observation is especially relevant to our understanding of the ecology and the bioengineering of lignin degradation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jessica A. Lee
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, United States
- Institute for Modeling Collaboration and Innovation, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, United States
- Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, United States
- Space Biosciences Research Branch, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, United States
| | - Sergey Stolyar
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, United States
- Institute for Modeling Collaboration and Innovation, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, United States
- Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, United States
| | - Christopher J. Marx
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, United States
- Institute for Modeling Collaboration and Innovation, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, United States
- Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, United States
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