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  • Not just browsing: An animal that grazes phyllosphere microbes facilitates community heterogeneity

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    O’RorkePUB2449.pdf (1.720Mb)
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    Accepted Manuscript (AM)
    Author(s)
    O'Rorke, Richard
    Tooman, Leah
    Gaughen, Kapono
    Holland, Brenden S.
    Amend, Anthony S.
    Griffith University Author(s)
    O'Rorke, Richard
    Year published
    2017
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    Abstract
    Although grazers have long been recognized as top–down architects of plant communities, animal roles in determining microbial community composition have seldom been examined, particularly in aboveground systems. To determine the extent to which an animal can shape microbial communities, we conducted a controlled mesocosm study in situ to see if introducing mycophageous tree snails changed phyllosphere fungal community composition relative to matched control mesocosms. Fungal community composition and change was determined by Illumina sequencing of DNA collected from leaf surfaces before snails were introduced, daily for 3 ...
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    Although grazers have long been recognized as top–down architects of plant communities, animal roles in determining microbial community composition have seldom been examined, particularly in aboveground systems. To determine the extent to which an animal can shape microbial communities, we conducted a controlled mesocosm study in situ to see if introducing mycophageous tree snails changed phyllosphere fungal community composition relative to matched control mesocosms. Fungal community composition and change was determined by Illumina sequencing of DNA collected from leaf surfaces before snails were introduced, daily for 3 days and weekly for 6 weeks thereafter. Scanning electron microscopy was used to confirm that grazing had occurred, and we recorded 3.5 times more cover of fungal hyphae in control mesocosms compared with those containing snails. Snails do not appear to vector novel microbes and despite grazing, a significant proportion of the initial leaf phyllosphere persisted in the mesocosms. Within-mesocosm diversities of fungi were similar regardless of whether or not snails were added. The greatest differences between the snail-treated and control mesocosms was that grazed mesocosms showed greater infiltration of microbes that were not sampled when the experiment commenced and that the variance in fungal community composition (beta diversity) was greater between leaves in snail-treated mesocosms indicating increased community heterogeneity and ecosystem fragmentation.
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    Journal Title
    The ISME Journal
    Volume
    11
    Issue
    8
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2017.52
    Copyright Statement
    © 2017 Nature Publishing Group. This is the author-manuscript version of this paper. Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. Please refer to the journal website for access to the definitive, published version.
    Subject
    Biological Sciences not elsewhere classified
    Environmental Sciences
    Biological Sciences
    Technology
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/349016
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    • Journal articles

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