Soil bacteria colonize plants without causing visible disease, yet many suppress host growth. The prevalence and evolutionary reach of this cryptic inhibition are unknown, because phenotyping hundreds...

Plants and other photosynthetic organisms interact with their environment and surrounding microbiota through specialized associations. A global core microbiota has been proposed at high taxonomic levels, such as the order level. However, it remains unclear which environmental factors and how microbe-microbe interactions drive variation of this core microbiota at lower taxonomic resolution. Here, we leveraged the environmental diversity of 141 sites across the southwest of France to characterize algal populations, and their associated bacterial and fungal microbiota. We then performed a meta-analysis, combining these data with published datasets to formally identify the global core microbiota of terrestrial photosynthetic organisms, which comprises seven bacterial and five fungal orders. We next investigated diversity within this core microbiota and the environmental drivers shaping site-specific community composition. While environmental factors have a low impact on the total relative abundance of core orders, the core microbiota at the ASV-level is impacted by climatic factors, edaphic factors, and plant community descriptors. Using interaction network analysis, we finally explored how microbe-microbe interactions contribute to the assembly of stable core communities. Our results show that core ASVs occupy central positions in algal-associated microbial networks and that distinct core orders drive site-specific variation in core microbiota structure. Together, these findings highlight the importance of both environmental context and microbial interactions in shaping the composition and stability of the core microbiota associated with photosynthetic organisms. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. European Research Council, 951444 – PATHOCOM, erc-stg-948219, EPYC Agence Nationale de la Recherche, ANR-10-LABX-41 Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, https://ror.org/00cwqg982, BB/ X011054/1, BBS/E/F/000PR13631

bio-huji-plants | Department of Plant & Environmental Sciences | The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Discovering plant and microbial life | Exploring the intricate interactions between plants, microor...

In this Review, Rillig explores the diversity of fungi in the soil ecosystem, their ecological interactions and diverse ecological roles in terrestrial ecosystems as well as anthropogenic factors that...

Mathematical modelling in microbiology converts verbal reasoning into internally consistent hypotheses that can provide testable predictions, infer hidden parameters, and generate transferable intuit...

Recent studies suggest that microbes inhabit tree bark, yet little is known about their identities, functions, and environmental roles. Here we reveal, through gene-centric and genome-resolved metagen...

Postdoctoral Researcher in discovering the benefits of plant growth-promoting bacteriophages

Development and application of the integrated linkage disequilibrium score (iLDS) reveals both selective pressures impacting the human gut microbiome and the mechanisms by which gut bacteria adapt to ...

Metaproteomics characterizes and compares molecular phenotypes of organisms in communities by comprehensively analyzing their protein expression profiles using statistical methods. However, not all st...

Abstract. Oxygen plays a crucial role in shaping microbial physiology, functions, and behavior. Endophytic bacteria, residing within plant tissues, inhabit

Biological diversity revealed by metagenomic sequencing far exceeds that of known or cultured organisms, yet much of this diversity remains inaccessible because most sequences from complex habitats, s...

Viral NblA accelerates the cyanophage infection cycle, directs degradation of the host phycobilisome and other proteins, and reduces host photosynthetic light-harvesting efficiency.

Abstract. Microbial community assembly is governed by the flow of carbon sources and other primary metabolites between species. However, central metabolism

Fusarium graminearum (F. graminearum) pathogen induces wheat phyllosphere alkalinization, promoting the development of Fusarium head blight (FHB). Xu et al. show that host-acidifying Pseudomonas, sele...

Metagenomes from prairie soils in Kansas, USA, show how historical exposure to water stress impacts soil microorganisms and subsequently drought responses in plants.

Rapid, accurate, and scalable sequencing of bacteriophage genomes is critical to advance phage therapy, build phage biobanks and understand phage genomic diversity. Current methods are based on sequen...

Despite being an essential part of terrestrial ecosystems for ∼400 million years, the microbiome of wood is surprisingly underexplored. In a recent is…

Seawater intrusion and sea level rise (SWISLR), driven by climate change, pose significant threats to coastal agroecosystems, particularly salt-affected paddy soils. Despite the importance of these sy...

Genomes contain orders of magnitude more open reading frames (ORFs) than known protein coding genes, and recent work suggests there may be unannotated proteins present in even the best studied organis...

Cyanobacteria possess diverse regulatory mechanisms to adapt to nutrient limitation, yet the extent to which these responses are shared across different nutrient stresses remains unclear. Understandin...