DOI: 10.5061/dryad.2v6wwpzjt
title: Data from: Spatially-explicit depiction of a floral epiphytic bacterial community reveals role for environmental filtering within petals

description: The microbiome of flowers (anthosphere) is an understudied compartment of
 the plant microbiome. Within the flower, petals represent a heterogeneous
 environment for microbes in terms of resources and environmental stress.
 Yet little is known of drivers of structure and function of the epiphytic
 microbial community at the within-petal scale. We characterized the petal
 microbiome in two co-flowering plants that differ in pattern of
 ultraviolet (UV) absorption along their petals. Bacterial communities were
 similar between plant hosts, with only rare phylogenetically distant
 species contributing to differences. The epiphyte community was highly
 culturable (75% of families) lending confidence to the spatially-explicit
 isolation and characterization of bacteria. In one host, petals were
 heterogeneous in UV absorption along their length and in these there was a
 negative relationship between growth rate and position on the petal, as
 well as lower UV tolerance in strains isolated from the UV absorbing base
 than from UV reflecting tip. A similar pattern was not seen in microbes
 isolated from a second host whose petals had uniform patterning along
 their length. Across strains, variation in carbon utilization and chemical
 tolerance followed common phylogenetic patterns. This work highlights the
 value of petals for spatially-explicit explorations of bacteria of the
 anthosphere.
description: For methodological details please consult the paper: Hayes et al.
 (2020). Spatially-explicit depiction of a floral epiphytic bacterial
 community reveals role for environmental filtering within
 petals. <em>MicrobiologyOpen. </em>If there are still doubts,
 please email Maria Rebolleda-Gomez at &lt;mariarebolleda at gmail dot
 com&gt;. 
description: This is a general index of
 the files in this folder. Each file contains metadata explaining the data
 contained in that file. If using this data, please cite the data set and
 the original paper.  <strong>Biolog
 Data.csv </strong>- This workbook contains data collected from
 Biolog Microbial Identification plates used in the analysis for Figures A4
 and A5. 
 <strong>Flowerhead_Age.csv - </strong>This workbook includes
 the raw data used to calculate the average longevity of entire flower head
 (days), number of disc flowers, and number of ray flowers for
 <em>Helianthus tuberosus</em> and <em>Verbesina
 alternifolia</em> in Table A1. 
 <strong>LD50Assay_RawData.csv</strong> - The raw data
 collected from UV tolerance plate assays used in Figure 6. Data is from
 spot planting at different dilutions and exposing the plates to UV to
 estimate the surviving CFUs.  <strong>Raw Growth Curve
 Output.xlsx -</strong> The raw plate reader output for the growth
 curve assay used to produce Figure 5 (a .csv file formatted for easier
 analyses is available
 in https://github.com/mrebolleda/Paper_MicrobialCommunitySpacePetal). <strong>GC_fit_summary.csv - </strong>A summary of the fit of the bacterial strain growth curve data to various models used to produce Figure 5. <strong>TableS3 - </strong>These files contain information on the different bacterial isolates obtained for this study. The table contains the host, color of colonies in LB, resistance to UV (LD50), Vmax, and if it has previously been isolated from other plant organs.  <strong>TableS3_Isolates.csv - </strong>List of all isolates and their associated data.  <strong>TableS3_References.csv - </strong>List of references cited for TableS3. <strong>TableS4_ColonyTraits.csv - </strong>Table with colony descriptions of each isolate on LB.