Phyllosphere microbial communities across a natural salinity gradient

To elucidate the impact of salinity and host species on the phyllosphere microbiome, we sampled the phyllosphere of the eelgrass Zostera marina across a salinity range of 6–15, as well as the Eurasian water milfoil Myriophyllum spicatum, muskgrass Chara spp., and sago pondweed Stuckenia pectinata in the brackish Baltic Sea during the summer of 2022. The samples were analyzed using 16S and 18S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing.