Functional Genes Discriminate Between Maize Phyllosphere Metagenomes in Drought and Well-Watered Conditions. phyllosphere metagenome

Plants form a wide variety of intimate associations with a diversity of microorganism (bacteria, fungi and viruses) that include the phyllosphere or the aerial parts of plant especially the leaves. Drought represents one of the most important abiotic stresses as limited water availability reduces yield world-wide. Future projections under climate change suggest that water availability will decline, and water demand will increase which will place new demands on agriculture. Maintaining crop yield under drought stress requires an understanding and integration of a variety of component traits including an understanding of the plant microbiome .In this National Science Foundation supported project, the microbiome of the phyllosphere (specifically from leaf surfaces) from corn or maize, Zea mays L., one of the most widely grown and economically important annual crops, was investigated under conditions when plants were well-watered versus drought. The microbiome of leaf surface communities from maize under drought and well-watered conditions from three locations in the US (Halfway TX, Dumas Etter TX and Berkeley CA) was deeply sequenced using metagenomics approaches. Data was subsequently analyzed using a variety of annotation and statistical methods.