Microbial communities living inside plant leaves or on the leaf surface are differently shaped by environmental cues.

Abstract

Leaf-associated microbial communities can promote plant health and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. However, the importance of environmental cues in the assembly of the leaf endo- and epi-microbiota remains elusive. Here, we aimed to investigate the impact of seasonal environmental variations, on the establishment of the leaf microbiome, focusing on long-term changes (five years) in bacterial, fungal, and nonfungal eukaryotic communities colonizing the surface and endosphere of six wild Arabidopsis thaliana populations. While leaf-microbial communities were found to be highly stochastic, the leaf niche had a predominant importance with endophytic microbial communities consistently exhibiting a lower diversity and variability. Among environmental factors, radiation- and humidity-related factors are the most important drivers of diversity patterns in the leaf, with stronger effects on epiphytic communities. Using linear models, we identified 30 important genera whose relative abundance in leaf compartments could be modeled from environmental variables, suggesting specific niche preferences for these taxa. With the hypothesis that environmental factors could impact interactions within microbial communities, we analyzed the seasonal patterns of microbial interaction networks across leaf compartments. We showed that epiphytic networks are more complex than endophytic and that the complexity and connectivity of these networks are partially correlated with the mentioned environmental cues. Our results indicate that humidity and solar radiation function as major environmental cues shaping the phyllosphere microbiome at both micro (leaf compartment) and macro (site) scales. These findings could have practical implications for predicting and developing field-adapted microbes in the face of global change.