For colonization success, should hosts and microbes travel alone, together, or swap partners along the way?
Takuji Usui, Jingcheng Yu, Megan E. FredericksonSummary
Microbiomes that enhance the performance of host plants are likely to be co‐introduced with their host during colonization because of their intimate association. Yet, it is unclear how co‐introduced microbes will impact host colonization, as both the microbiome and its effects could vary upon introduction into a new habitat.
Using the duckweed
Lemna japonica
– a cosmopolitan, freshwater angiosperm – and its microbiome, we tracked the colonization of both plants and microbes during an experimental co‐introduction in the wild. We tested how plant performance varied during colonization when plants were co‐introduced with microbes from their home habitat or with microbes local to the introduced habitat.
We found that plant performance was substantially reduced when plants were co‐introduced with microbes from their home habitat (i.e. with microbes that are non‐local to the introduced habitat), relative to hosts with a local microbiome. Moreover, negative impacts from the initial, non‐local microbiome persisted for multiple host generations despite a rapid turnover in microbiome composition. Our results suggest that the initial microbiome plants are co‐introduced and can leave lasting impacts on plant performance during colonization. Considering the identity of the co‐introduced microbiome will therefore be critical to predicting plant colonization dynamics in an era of global change.