Speaker
Description
Photosynthetic organisms, such as land plants and algae, release organic compounds to the surrounding environment, which create a niche for colonization by heterotrophic microbes. These microbes consume photosynthates and assemble into complex communities, often providing their host with beneficial services in exchange, such as pathogen protection, or enhanced nutrient mobilization. While these interactions are ubiquitous in nature, and of great ecological and agricultural importance, direct evidence for adaptation to their host, and simultaneously to other community members remains scarce. Here, we introduce two long-term experimental evolution experiments using artificial microbial communities and multiple algae and plant species, including the model embryophytes Arabidopsis thaliana and Lotus japonicus, and the chlorophyte Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. These reductionist experimental systems allow us to study the dynamic behaviour and evolution of host-associated microbes in a community context and provide data that suggest rapid and reproducible bacterial adaptation to their associated photosynthetic host species and to other microbiota members.
