Study on Phyllosphere Microbial Community of Nettle Leaf during Different Seasons

Abstract

Nettle (Urtica cannabina) is an excellent feed resource widely distributed worldwide. Phyllosphere microbes are important as they have living conditions similar to those of the above-ground parts of host plants. Exploring amino acids (AA) and microorganisms can further understand the growth of plants in different seasons. The present study investigated the content of AA and phyllosphere microbes’ structure of nettle plants in different seasons. The results found that AA contents varied significantly with the season, such as alanine, aspartate, cysteine, glutamate, glycine, and methionine contents decreased significantly from spring to winter (p < 0.05), the contents of arginine, histidine, serine, and lysine were highest in summer (p < 0.05). The results suggested that the diversity of bacteria and fungi both increased during winter. During winter, Sphingomonas (relative abundance 25.22–28.45%) and Filobasidum (27.6–41.14%) became dominant. According to the redundancy analysis (RDA) of the correlation between AA and microbes, these two microbes were both the most important factors and showed a negative correlation with AA during winter. Thus, seasons could significantly affect the distribution of phyllosphere microbial communities on the nettle, especially in winter. According to the function prediction(PICRUS2 (KEGG pathway) and FUNGuild) results, the bacteria in the phyllosphere of U. cannabina mainly participated in metabolism. Pathogenic fungi were relatively high in autumn. The present study reveals the influence of seasonal change on the phyllosphere microbial community in U. cannabina.