Microbial communities associated to common bean seed - A mechanism of local adaptation of plants?

The effects of crop genotype and cultivation site on microbial communities associated to seed of Phaseolus vulgaris were assessed on 33 seed lots. These seed lots were obtained by multiplying 5 initial seed lots of different cultivars in two contrasting environments for 2 years in 3 replicates. An additional commercial control lot was introduced the second year. The diversity of fungal and bacterial communities was analyzed by high-throughput sequencing of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene and the fungal ITS1 region, respectively. Results showed that the structure of the fungal and the bacterial communities is significantly affected by the cultivation site.