Arnold Wyatt, Gewirtzman Jonathan, Raymond Peter A, Duguid Marlyse C, Brodersen Craig R, Brown Cade, Norbraten Naomi, Wood Qespi T'ika Vizcarra, Bradford Mark A, Peccia Jordan
Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
Yale School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
Nature. 2025 Aug 6. doi: 10.1038/s41586-025-09316-0.
Despite significant advances in microbiome research across various environments, the microbiome of Earth's largest biomass reservoir-the wood of living trees-remains largely unexplored. Here, we illuminate the microbiome inhabiting and adapted to wood and further specialized to individual host tree species, revealing that wood is a harbour of biodiversity and potential key players in tree health and forest ecosystem functions. We demonstrate that a single tree hosts approximately one trillion bacteria in its woody tissues, with microbial communities distinctly partitioned between heartwood and sapwood, each maintaining unique microbiomes with minimal similarity to other plant tissues or ecosystem components. The heartwood microbiome emerges as a particularly unique ecological niche, distinguished by specialized archaea and anaerobic bacteria driving consequential biogeochemical processes. Our findings support the concept of plants as 'holobionts'-integrated ecological units of host and associated microorganisms-with implications for tree health, disease and functionality. By characterizing the composition, structure and functions of tree internal microbiomes, our work opens up pathways for understanding tree physiology and forest ecology and establishes a new frontier in environmental microbiology.
尽管在各种环境中的微生物组研究取得了重大进展，但地球上最大的生物量库——活树的木材——的微生物组在很大程度上仍未得到探索。在这里，我们阐明了栖息于木材并适应木材且进一步专门适应个别寄主树种的微生物组，揭示木材是生物多样性的一个港湾以及树木健康和森林生态系统功能中潜在的关键参与者。我们证明，一棵单一的树在其木质组织中容纳了大约一万亿个细菌，微生物群落在心材和边材之间明显分隔，每个都维持着独特的微生物组，与其他植物组织或生态系统成分的相似度极低。心材微生物组成为一个特别独特的生态位，其特征是专门的古菌和厌氧细菌驱动着重要的生物地球化学过程。我们的研究结果支持了植物作为“共生功能体”（宿主和相关微生物的综合生态单位）的概念，这对树木健康、疾病和功能具有重要意义。通过表征树木内部微生物组的组成、结构和功能，我们的工作为理解树木生理学和森林生态学开辟了途径，并在环境微生物学领域建立了一个新的前沿领域。
