Impacts of global change on the phyllosphere microbiome

Abstract

Plants form complex interaction networks with diverse microbiomes in the environment, and the intricate interplay between plants and their associated microbiomes can greatly influence ecosystem processes and functions. The phyllosphere, the aerial part of the plant, provides a unique habitat for diverse microbes, and in return the phyllosphere microbiome greatly affects plant performance. As an open system, the phyllosphere is subjected to environmental perturbations, including global change, which will impact the crosstalk between plants and their microbiomes. In this review, we aim to provide a synthesis of current knowledge of the complex interactions between plants and the phyllosphere microbiome under global changes and to identify future priority areas of research on this topic.

Keywords: climate change; microbes; one health; phyllosphere; plant microbiome; plant performance.

Fig. 1

Ecological functions of the phyllosphere microbiome.

Fig. 2

Bibliometric analysis of phyllosphere microbiome research based on the Web of Science Core Collection database from January 2010 to May 2021. (a) Keyword cooccurrence network. Nodes represent unique keywords; node size is proportional to the number of references; node colours indicate modules. (b) Burst word detection analysis. Length represents the burst status duration; colour saturation indicates citation burst strength. Bibliometric analysis was conducted by retrieving citation data based on a topic search using as query: ‘N deposition OR nitrogen deposition OR CO2 OR carbon dioxide OR precipitation OR temperature OR climate change) AND (phyllospher* OR leaf OR leaves) AND (fung* OR bacteria* OR microb* OR archaea* OR virus OR viral OR protist*’. The results were filtered to include items from January 2010 to May 2021, and were further analysed by CiteSpace (Chen et al., 2010) to highlight the hotspots and frontier trends in the phyllosphere microbiome responses to global change.

Fig. 3

Impact factors of the phyllosphere microbiome. The phyllosphere comprises the aboveground part of a plant, harbouring diverse microbes in both epiphytic and endophytic niches. These microbiomes derive from vertical transmission via parental inheritance, and horizontal transmission by surrounding environments (e.g. soil and air). On the one hand, global changes such as climate warming, drought and precipitation might impact leaf functional traits and phyllosphere microbiome traits, and the latter mediates the hydraulic activation of stomata relevant to the pathway for foliar water uptake. On the other hand, chemical fertilization can also affect the phyllosphere microbiome by changing rhizosphere communities and leaf morphology.