Microbiome specificity and fluxes between two distant plant taxa in Iberian forests

Abstract

[EN]Plant-associated microbial communities play important roles in host nutrition, development and defence. In particular, the microbes living within internal plant tissues can affect plant metabolism in a more intimate way. Understanding the factors that shape plant microbial composition and discovering enriched microbes within endophytic compartments would thus be valuable to gain knowledge on potential plant–microbial coevolutions. However, these interactions are usually studied through reductionist approaches (in vitro models or crop controlled systems). Here, we investigate these ecological factors in wild forest niches using proximally located plants from two distant taxa (blueberry and blackberry) as a model.