Small scale fungal community differentiation in a vineyard system

There is increasing evidence demonstrating that fungal communities are geographically differentiated on scales larger than 100 km; however our understanding of the scale at which these patterns hold is limited. Microbes are important throughout the production of agricultural commodities, affecting their quality and sensorial attributes through a variety of means. For wine, not only are microbes an essential part of the process in that they are necessary to transform grape must to wine, but they also affect vine and fruit health throughout grape development. Microbes have been shown to contribute to the regional distinctiveness of wine which engages consumers and adds to its economic value. It is not understood, however, whether microbes have the potential to contribute to site-to-site differences in wine attributes. Here we investigated whether fungal communities are differentiated on small scales of less than 2 km and thus have the potential to contribute to the distinctiveness of single vineyard wines.