Each tree species has its own bacterial identity

[Gloria]

Each tree species has unique bacterial identity, microbiome research shows -- ScienceDaily

"This study demonstrates for the first time that host plants from different plant families and with different ecological strategies
possess very different microbial communities on their leaves," said lead author Steven W. Kembel,
a former postdoctoral researcher in the UO's Institute of Ecology and Evolution who is now a professor of biological sciences at the University of Quebec at Montreal.

"Some bacteria were very abundant and present on every leaf in the forest, while others were rare and only found on the leaves of a single host species," Kembel said.
"Each tree species of tree possessed a distinctive community of bacteria on its leaves."

"We found that the abundance of some bacterial taxa was correlated with the growth, mortality, and function of the host,
" Kembel said. These included bacteria involved in nitrogen fixing and the consumption of methane, as well as bacteria linked to soil and water.