What is it about?
Our particular focus was to study both the spatial context and the relative magnitude of plants as sources of airborne microbes outdoors.
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Why is it important?
We provide direct evidence that plants are quantitatively important local sources of airborne bacteria, with fungi exhibiting a lower observed effect. This finding has important implications for surrounding ecosystems. There seems to be a feedback loop in which the air and the plants serve as sources (inocula) and sinks at the same time, an important issue in understanding the assembly of phyllosphere microbial communities. For the built environment, the microbial composition of indoor air may be driven at least partially by the abundance and identity of the local vegetation.
Perspectives
Emigration of epiphytic bacteria and, to a lesser extent, fungi, from plants can strongly influence the microbial composition of nearby air, a finding that has important implications for surrounding ecosystems. As airborne microbes are a major source of inoculum to establish epiphytic communities, the metacommunity of foliar colonists is apparently strongly influenced by other plants nearby.
Dr Despoina S. Lymperopoulou
University of California Berkeley
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Contribution of Vegetation to the Microbial Composition of Nearby Outdoor Air, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, April 2016, ASM Journals,
DOI: 10.1128/aem.00610-16.
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