Bacteria blossom in apple flowers

摘要

Surveys of microbe populations on plants have stuck mainly to leaves, but research now shows that flowers of apple trees (pictured) harbour a diverse and changing population of microbes. Jo Handelsman at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and her colleagues sequenced the DNA of microbes residing on the flowers of six apple trees at five points in their flowering cycle. In total, the authors identified 1,677 types of bacterium and archaeon.