Original title: Microbial Hub Taxa Link Host and Abiotic Factors to Plant Microbiome Variation
Plants host communities of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes on and inside their leaves. The researchers found that weather-related conditions and plant genes affect these communities partly by acting on a few highly connected microbes, called hubs. Those hubs then affect other microbes through their interactions. One hub, the pathogen Albugo, reduced the variety of bacteria found and made bacterial communities more alike across plants.
Imagine a busy kitchen where everyone passes ingredients to one another while cooking. A few people handle far more handoffs than the rest, so changing what they receive can affect many dishes. In this paper, those busy cooks stand for highly connected microbes, and the handoffs stand for interactions that carry the effects of plant genes and environmental conditions through the microbial community.
For people studying crops, plant diseases, or ecosystem management, the findings suggest that changing a few influential microbes may reshape many others. That could offer a way to guide plant microbiomes, though the abstract does not show that a practical treatment has been tested.
The abstract describes experiments on Arabidopsis thaliana and reports closer analysis of two hub microbes, Albugo and Dioszegia. It does not establish that the same hubs or effects occur in other plants, or that managing hubs has been shown to improve crops or control disease in practice.
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Microbial Hub Taxa Link Host and Abiotic Factors to Plant Microbiome Variation — Matthew T. Agler, Jonas Ruhe, Samuel Kroll et al. — PLoS Biology — doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002352
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.