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Plant host identity and soil macronutrients explain little variation in sapling endophyte community composition: Is disturbance an alternative explanation?

Bacterial endophytes may be fairly host‐specific; nonetheless, an important subset of taxa may be shared among numerous host species forming a community‐wide core microbiome. Moreover, other key factors, particularly the supply of limiting macronutrients and disturbances, may supersede the importanc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of ecology 2019-07, Vol.107 (4), p.1876-1889
Main Authors: Griffin, Eric A., Harrison, Joshua G., Kembel, Steven W., Carrell, Alyssa A., Joseph Wright, S., Carson, Walter P., de Vries, Franciska
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Bacterial endophytes may be fairly host‐specific; nonetheless, an important subset of taxa may be shared among numerous host species forming a community‐wide core microbiome. Moreover, other key factors, particularly the supply of limiting macronutrients and disturbances, may supersede the importance of host identity. We tested the following four non‐mutually exclusive hypotheses: (a) The Host Identity Hypothesis: endophytes vary substantially among different host‐plant species. (b) The Core Microbiome Hypothesis: a subset of microbial taxa will be shared among all host‐plant species. (c). The Soil Resource Supply Hypothesis: endophytes vary substantially among habitats with experimentally elevated levels of macronutrients. (d) The Disturbance–Disruption Hypothesis: disturbances created by the periodic application of antibiotics structure bacterial endophyte communities. We tested these hypotheses by characterizing endophytes using high‐throughput sequencing among seedlings of five phylogenetically diverse tree species nested within a long‐term, full factorial nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium soil fertilization experiment. We artificially disturbed one of our focal species by applying antibiotics every 10–14 days for 29 months within the soil (N, P, K) fertilization experiment. While we detected a significant effect of host identity and soil nutrient additions, together they explained little variation in endophyte community composition (
ISSN:0022-0477
1365-2745
DOI:10.1111/1365-2745.13145