title: Microbiota and Host Nutrition across Plant and Animal Kingdoms.
abstract: Plants and animals each have evolved specialized organs dedicated to nutrient acquisition, and these harbor specific bacterial communities that extend the host's metabolic repertoire. Similar forces driving microbial community establishment in the gut and plant roots include diet/soil-type, host genotype, and immune system as well as microbe-microbe interactions. Here we show that there is no overlap of abundant bacterial taxa between the microbiotas of the mammalian gut and plant roots, whereas taxa overlap does exist between fish gut and plant root communities. A comparison of root and gut microbiota composition in multiple host species belonging to the same evolutionary lineage reveals host phylogenetic signals in both eukaryotic kingdoms. The reasons underlying striking differences in microbiota composition in independently evolved, yet functionally related, organs in plants and animals remain unclear but might include differences in start inoculum and niche-specific factors such as oxygen levels, temperature, pH, and organic carbon availability.
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Microbe Interactions, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, 50829 Cologne, Germany.
authors.forename: Stéphane
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hacquard
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Microbe Interactions, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, 50829 Cologne, Germany; Department of Algorithmic Bioinformatics, Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf, 40225 Duesseldorf, Germany; Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences (CEPLAS), Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, 50829 Cologne, Germany.
authors.forename: Ruben
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Garrido-Oter
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: González
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Microbe Interactions, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, 50829 Cologne, Germany.
authors.forename: Stijn
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Spaepen
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
authors.forename: Gail
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ackermann
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-0845, USA.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lebeis
authors.affiliation: Department of Algorithmic Bioinformatics, Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf, 40225 Duesseldorf, Germany; Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences (CEPLAS), Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, 50829 Cologne, Germany; Computational Biology of Infection Research, Helmholtz Center for Infection Research, 38124 Braunschweig, Germany. Electronic address: alice.mchardy@helmholtz-hzi.de.
authors.forename: Alice C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: McHardy
authors.affiliation: Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA; Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA. Electronic address: dangl@email.unc.edu.
authors.forename: Jeffrey L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Dangl
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA; Department of Computer Sciences and Engineering, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. Electronic address: robknight@ucsd.edu.
authors.forename: Rob
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Knight
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA; Department of Microbiology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA. Electronic address: rel222@cornell.edu.
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ley
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Microbe Interactions, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, 50829 Cologne, Germany; Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences (CEPLAS), Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, 50829 Cologne, Germany. Electronic address: schlef@mpipz.mpg.de.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Schulze-Lefert
mesh_terms: D000220:Adaptation, Biological; D000818:Animals; D041981:Gastrointestinal Tract / Q000382:microbiology*; D008322:Mammals; D008660:Metabolism; D054892:Metagenome; D064307:Microbiota; D018517:Plant Roots / Q000382:microbiology*