Microbial communities on flower surfaces act as signatures of pollinator visitation

Microbes are easily dispersed from one place to another and immigrant microbes might contain information about the environments from which they came. We hypothesized that part of the microbial community on a flower's surface is transferred there from insect body surfaces and that this community...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2015-03, Vol.5 (1), p.8695-8695, Article 8695
Main Authors: Ushio, Masayuki, Yamasaki, Eri, Takasu, Hiroyuki, Nagano, Atsushi J., Fujinaga, Shohei, Honjo, Mie N., Ikemoto, Mito, Sakai, Shoko, Kudoh, Hiroshi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
45/23
45/77
631/158/2463
631/158/853
631/158/855
631/449/2668
Animals
Biodiversity
Community composition
Dispersal
Environmental Microbiology
Flowers
Flowers - microbiology
Herbivores
Humanities and Social Sciences
Insecta - microbiology
Insects
Metagenome
Microbial activity
Microbiomes
Microbiota
multidisciplinary
Pollination
Pollinators
Science
Species
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Summary:Microbes are easily dispersed from one place to another and immigrant microbes might contain information about the environments from which they came. We hypothesized that part of the microbial community on a flower's surface is transferred there from insect body surfaces and that this community can provide information to identify potential pollinator insects of that plant. We collected insect samples from the field and found that an insect individual harbored an average of 12.2 × 10 5 microbial cells on its surface. A laboratory experiment showed that the microbial community composition on a flower surface changed after contact with an insect, suggesting that microbes are transferred from the insect to the flower. Comparison of the microbial fingerprint approach and direct visual observation under field condition suggested that the microbial community on a flower surface could to some extent indicate the structure of plant–pollinator interactions. In conclusion, species-specific insect microbial communities specific to insect species can be transferred from an insect body to a flower surface and these microbes can serve as a “fingerprint” of the insect species, especially for large-bodied insects. Dispersal of microbes is a ubiquitous phenomenon that has unexpected and novel applications in many fields and disciplines.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/srep08695