Do leaf temperatures determine endophyte composition and richness in Florida native plant species?

Do leaf temperatures determine endophyte composition and richness in Florida native plant species? | Authorea try { document.documentElement.classList.add('js'); } catch (e) { } var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'G-8VDV14Y67G']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); Skip to main content Preprints Collections Wiley Open Research IET Open Research Ecological Society of Japan All Collections About About Authorea FAQs Contact Us Quick Search anywhere Search for preprint articles, keywords, etc. Search Search ADVANCED SEARCH SCROLL This is a preprint and has not been peer reviewed. Data may be preliminary. 17 January 2026 V1 Latest version Share on Do leaf temperatures determine endophyte composition and richness in Florida native plant species? Authors : Olga Tserej Vazquez 0000-0002-7075-4989 [email protected] , Damian Hernandez , Amanda Rawstern , Kasey Kiesewetter , Brianna Almeida , Michelle E. Afkhami , and Kenneth Feeley 0000-0002-3618-1144 Authors Info & Affiliations https://doi.org/10.22541/au.176868009.96448078/v1 207 views 128 downloads Contents Abstract Information & Authors Metrics & Citations View Options References Figures Tables Media Share Abstract Microbiomes play crucial roles in ecosystems, largely through their interactions with plants. Fungal endophytes occur in nearly all plant tissues and can influence host physiology, stress tolerance, and productivity. Although previous studies have examined how air temperature shapes foliar endophyte communities, endophytes may respond more strongly to leaf temperatures, which are often decoupled from ambient air temperatures. Consequently, changes in leaf temperature (e.g., due to global warming) may alter endophyte diversity and composition. In this study, we experimentally tested whether elevated leaf temperatures affect fungal endophyte richness and community composition in six native subtropical plant species from South Florida. Using in situ localized heating of individual branches, we increased leaf temperatures by 1–3°C over a two-week period. Leaf thermal profiles were monitored with thermal imaging, and pre- and post-treatment leaf samples were collected from heated and unheated branches for fungal DNA extraction, ITS sequencing, and community analysis. Our results show that fungal leaf endophyte richness and composition were strongly determined by host plant identity, but were unaffected by warming. Linear mixed-effects models and paired t-tests showed no significant changes in species richness with heating across all hosts. Similarly, distance-based redundancy analysis and PERMANOVA tests revealed no significant shifts in fungal community composition due to increased leaf temperatures. However, a random forest classification model identified a subset of fungal operational taxonomic units that were predictive of temperature treatment. While overall endophyte communities were stable, specific taxa may be thermally responsive. Foliar fungal endophyte communities in subtropical woody plants may be resistant to short-term warming. Such stability could buffer host plants against microbial disruption during temperature extremes, though it may also limit adaptive microbial turnover. This study advances understanding of plant–microbe thermal dynamics and underscores the need for further research on the functional resilience of endophyte communities under climate change. Do leaf temperatures determine endophyte composition and richness in Florida native plant species? Olga Tserej 1,2 , Damian J. Hernandez 3 , Amanda H. Rawstern 1 , Kasey N. Kiesewetter 4 , Brianna K. Almeida 5 , Michelle E. Afkhami 1† and Kenneth J. Feeley 1† 1. Biology Department, University of Miami,Coral Gables, FL, USA 2. BLUE Missions, Miami, FL, USA 3. University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada 4. University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand 5. North Carolina State University, North Carolina, USA † authors who contributed equally Abstract Microbiomes play crucial roles in ecosystems, largely through their interactions with plants. Fungal endophytes occur in nearly all plant tissues and can influence host physiology, stress tolerance, and productivity. Although previous studies have examined how air temperature shapes foliar endophyte communities, endophytes may respond more strongly to leaf temperatures, which are often decoupled from ambient air temperatures. Consequently, changes in leaf temperature (e.g., due to global warming) may alter endophyte diversity and composition. In this study, we experimentally tested whether elevated leaf temperatures affect fungal endophyte richness and community composition in six native subtropical plant species from South Florida. Using in situ localized heating of individual branches, we increased leaf temperatures by 1–3°C over a two-week period. Leaf thermal profiles were monitored with thermal imaging, and pre- and post-treatment leaf samples were collected from heated and unheated branches for fungal DNA extraction, ITS sequencing, and community analysis. Our results show that fungal leaf endophyte richness and composition were strongly determined by host plant identity, but were unaffected by warming. Linear mixed-effects models and paired t-tests showed no significant changes in species richness with heating across all hosts. Similarly, distance-based redundancy analysis and PERMANOVA tests revealed no significant shifts in fungal community composition due to increased leaf temperatures. However, a random forest classification model identified a subset of fungal operational taxonomic units that were predictive of temperature treatment. While overall endophyte communities were stable, specific taxa may be thermally responsive. Foliar fungal endophyte communities in subtropical woody plants may be resistant to short-term warming. Such stability could buffer host plants against microbial disruption during temperature extremes, though it may also limit adaptive microbial turnover. This study advances understanding of plant–microbe thermal dynamics and underscores the need for further research on the functional resilience of endophyte communities under climate change. Keywords: Fungal endophytes, leaf temperature, fungal community composition, subtropical plants, experimental warming, climate change Background Microbiomes play many essential roles in ecosystem services, including through beneficial effects on plant growth, survival, and fecundity. Fungal endophytes, which occur in all plant lineages and inside all compartments of plants, can determine growth and defense of their hosts and may contribute to plant health and the extreme biodiversity of tropical and subtropical ecosystems (Gilbert & Strong, 2007; Rodriguez et al., 2008). Foliar endophytes can increase abiotic and biotic stress tolerance of hosts through changes in morphology and investment (e.g., root structure and investment in roots versus shoots), physiological attributes (e.g., stomatal conductance), and defensive characteristics (e.g., production of anti-herbivore alkaloids)(Rodríguez et al., 2009). However, while foliar endophytes are critical to plant productivity and survival, we know surprisingly little about how these fungal communities will respond to rapid warming under anthropogenic climate change. Moreover, how increasing temperatures will impact foliar endophytes and the services that they provide their plant hosts is especially understudied in tropical and subtropical plant species (González‐Teuber et al., 2019; Van Bael et al., 2016). The limited understanding of how climate change affects foliar endophytes in tropical and subtropical plants is deeply concerning, as these regions represent important hotspots of global plant biodiversity. Among the environmental factors that influence endophyte communities, temperature has emerged as an important driver. Studies have shown that climatic variables like temperature and precipitation can explain variation in endophyte richness and composition (Zimmerman & Vitousek, 2012). However, these studies largely focus on air temperatures, overlooking the more proximate conditions that fungi experience within the plants and leaves itself (i.e., the fungal microclimate). Importantly, leaf temperatures can differ dramatically from surrounding air temperatures due to a combination of thermoregulatory behaviors, morphology, and physical traits of the leaves (Lin et al., 2017; Leigh et al., 2017; Tserej & Feeley, 2021). For example, leaf size, color, and orientation can cause co-occurring plants to vary in leaf temperature by as much as 11°C, even under identical air temperatures (Fauset et al., 2018). Moreover, within a single plant, sun and shade leaves may differ significantly in temperature, with sun leaves often exhibiting traits that promote heat dissipation (Smith & Nobel, 1977). Given that fungi colonize and persist within the leaf microenvironment, leaf temperature should play a strong role in shaping endophyte communities. Although this relationship has not been directly tested, several studies support this hypothesis indirectly. For example, leaf color, which has been connected with leaf temperatures (Singh, 1978), has also been associated with endophyte community assembly (Van Bael et al., 2016). Likewise, other functional traits related with leaf temperatures, such as Leaf Mass per Area (LMA), leaf thickness, and chlorophyll content (Leigh et al., 2012; Sanchez-Azofeifa et al., 2011), have also been associated with fungal endophyte hyphal growth (Nezhad & Geitmann, 2013), endophyte abundances (Tellez et al., 2022), and endophyte species richness (Talebi, 2011). Finally, total terpenoid content, which quantifies terpenoid metabolites that significantly increase during heat shock treatments (Copolovici et al., 2012), has been positively correlated with fungal endophyte frequency (González‐Teuber et al., 2019). Taken together, this evidence all suggests that endophytic community properties like richness and composition should be associated with leaf temperatures and that changes in leaf temperatures should drive changes in endophyte communities, In the context of global climate change, understanding how leaf temperature influences endophyte communities is increasingly urgent. As anthropogenic warming continues, global air temperatures, and consequently leaf temperatures, are expected to rise significantly (Seneviratne, 2021; Calvin et al., 2023). These shifts are likely to impact endophyte composition and richness, with potential downstream effects on plant health, community dynamics, and ecosystem function. Here, we present a novel experimental test of the hypothesis that increased leaf temperatures alter fungal endophyte communities. We manipulated leaf temperature directly in situ by experimentally heating leaves of six native Florida woody plant species and compared fungal endophyte diversity and composition pre and post treatment and between heated and unheated leaves on the same individuals. These comparisons were specifically designed to test the hypothesis that increased leaf temperatures will affect fungal endophyte richness and composition and the prediction that heated leaves would host a less diverse and compositionally distinct fungal endophyte community. Study species Six native Florida plant species were selected for this study (Table 1). Six individuals of each species were obtained from the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and commercial nurseries in Miami-Dade county (FL USA) and maintained in the University of Miami’s greenhouse (Coral Gables, FL USA; 25° 43’ 25.59” N, 80° 16’ 48.87” W). Warming experiment To investigate the expected effects of leaf temperature on endophyte communities, we experimentally increased leaf temperatures of individual branches using 15 x 20 cm electric warming pads that maintain constant temperatures of 40-50°C. The heaters were placed approximately 5 cm below one branch of six individuals per species. A pilot comparison of leaf temperatures in heated and non-heated leaves showed that this treatment warmed the leaves by an average of 1-3°C compared to leaves on non-treated branches of the same individual plants. Leaf thermal measurements Prior to the experiment, we collected 6 leaves each from one heated and one unheated branch per individual for fungal DNA extraction to determine pre-treatment endophyte composition. After the start of treatment, we took thermal measurements on another set of 12 leaves (6 heated and 6 unheated control leaves) of each individual plant. Leaf temperature measurements were conducted 3 times per week using a thermal camera (FLIR E95, thermal sensitivity and emissivity set at 0.95). Once consistent leaf temperature differences were established between the groups (heated vs. controls) for a period of two weeks, the leaves were harvested (post-treatment leaves) and brought to a laboratory facility for fungal DNA extraction. Fungal DNA extraction and sequencing DNA was extracted from each sample leaf (n = 144; 6 species ✕ 6 individuals ✕ 4 treatment groups [pre-treatment control, post-treatment control, pre-treatment heating and post-treatment heating] using a Qiagen DNeasy Plant Pro Kit (catalog number: 69206). For our extraction protocol, we first homogenized frozen leaf tissue in a TissueLyser (Qiagen TissueLyser II Bead Mill) for 5 minutes at 25 Hz with blocks pre-frozen at -20 o C and with 1.58 mm (1/16 in) stainless steel beads. This homogenization step pulverizes the leaf tissue to improve the subsequent physical and chemical lysis steps. We then lysed pulverized leaf tissue in a cetyltrimethylammonium bromide solution (CTAB; F2+K buffer [70% of F2 buffer, 29.99% of 5M NaOAc ph5.2, 0.01% of β-mercaptoethanol]; F2 buffer [20% of 10% CTAB, 10% of 1M Tris-HCL pH 8, 10% of 20% PVP40, 4% of 0.5M EDTA pH 8.0, 50 % of 4M NaCl, 6% of H2O]) by incubating resuspended tissue at 65°C for 15 minutes then homogenizing in a TissueLyser for 2 minutes at 25 Hz. We repeated the heating and homogenization steps four times to improve lysis due to characteristics like thick cuticle layers that made these species difficult to lyse. After this physical/chemical lysis in CTAB solution, we then followed the standard DNeasy Plant Pro Kit protocol for DNA binding and subsequent steps. All negative controls had undetected fluorometer (Qubit 4; Qubit High Sensitivity DNA Assay, Q33231) readings indicating contaminants were not present during the extraction process. Sequencing primers (Revillini et al., 2022) were used that matched the universal tail sequences from the first round of amplification. Fungal DNA was targeted using primer pairs ITS1/ITS2 for PCR (White et al. 1990). Libraries were prepared for sequencing using a two-step dual indexing protocol (Gohl et al. 2016). After each PCR step, magnetic bead cleaning was performed and DNA quality was checked using 1% agarose gel electrophoresis. Indexed DNA from 144 samples were pooled in equimolar quantities. Then, libraries were sequenced on an Illumina MiSeq Sequencer (v3, 300 bp paired end) at the University of Miami’s Center for Genome Technology (Miami, FL, USA). Bioinformatics Sequences were processed through QIIME2 (v.2023.9) to join paired-end reads, remove low quality bases, and classify reads into Exact Sequence Variants (ESVs) (Bolyen et al., 2019). Denoising was performed with the DADA2 algorithm (Callahan et al., 2016), to remove chimeric sequences and truncate amplicon forward and reverse reads to an equal length. We determined taxonomy using the UNITE (v_28.07.2023) fungal database database (Koljalg et al., 2020) which determines ”species” based on 99% similarity thresholds of the ITS1 region. We then used the UNITE database to build a Bayesian, supervised machine learning approach for matching our reads to the UNITE database. We first built a classifier of the UNITE database (fit-classifier-naive-bayes function) which builds Bayesian models for each reference sequence in the database to determine the probability that a read belongs to the same ”species” as the reference. We then used that classifier to match reads to the UNITE database (classifier-sklearn function). All abundance tables from QIIME2 were imported into R v4.1.173 (R Core Team, 2023). Replicates were pooled and rarefied to 2000 reads based on rarefaction curve analysis (R package GuniFrac, v1.5) (Chen et al., 2018) and 24 samples were eliminated from the analysis. Following best practices (Reitmeier et al., 2021), sequences with relative abundances of less than 0.25% were removed to avoid overinflating diversity due to spurious sequences. Statistical analysis To assess the relationships between endophyte fungal species richness of heated vs. unheated leaves collected from individual plants pre- and post-treatment, we used a global linear mixed-effects model using the nlme package in R (Pinheiro et al., 2012). Heating treatment, pre-post effect, and plant species, as well their interactions were included as fixed effects, and individuals were included as random effects (random intercepts and slopes). We repeated this analysis to look at pre and post differences within each individual plant. The response variable is the difference in species richness for each individual pre- and post-treatment. The linear mixed model includes heat treatment, plant species, and its interaction as fixed effects, and individuals were kept as a random effect. We also assessed how the heat treatment affected the composition of the fungal endophytes. We used Bray-Curtis distances to quantify dissimilarities in species composition between heated and unheated leaves. We then performed a distance-based redundancy analysis to assess response to time, treatment, and plant species and a PERMANOVA to test for factor significance (999 permutations). To assess the influence of temperature on specific endophyte groups, we conducted a random forest classification analysis with Boruta feature selection using ESV fungal data. The random forest model was implemented in R using the Boruta package (Kursa and Rudnicki, 2020). Boruta feature selection determines which features (i.e., microbial taxa) are important for the classification of the outcome variable (i.e., unheated vs heated temperature treatments). Variable importance from this model was then assessed to identify ESVs that are particularly important for determining temperature treatment groups. Results Diversity A comparison of daytime leaf temperatures between heated and unheated leaves showed consistent temperature increases, with a few isolated exceptions in Hamelia patens . Differences in mean temperatures of control and heated leaves were 2.1 o C (+/- s.e.m.) and ranged from 0.1 o C in H. patens to 5.4 o C in Myrcianthes fragrans (Figure 1). Hamelia patens leaves likely resisted heating because of high transpiration and morphological adaptations that allowed them to maintain stable temperatures despite external heat input (Tserej and Feeley, 2021). Endophyte species richness was primarily determined by host identity (p = 0.001) and marginally by the interaction between host identity and time (meaning pre vs post samples, p = 0.05). Heating had no effect on species richness (p = 0.88; Table 2). Likewise, The global linear mixed-effects model to assess the relationships between fungal endophyte species richness of heated vs. control leaves collected from individual plants pre- and post-treatment showed no significant effect of heating (p = 0.88; Table 2). The only factor that significantly affected endophyte richness was plant species identity (p = 0.001). The interaction between species and pre vs. post treatment was marginally significant (p = 0.05). Paired t-tests also found no significant effects of heating on endophyte richness in any of the six plant species (Figure 2; Table 4) . Composition Plant species identity was the main factor determining the fungal endophyte composition, explaining approximately 33% of the variation in endophyte community composition (db-RDA, p = 0.001). However, there were no significant differences in fungal community composition due to either the heat treatment or time (pre- vs-post treatment; Table 5, Figure 3.3). The resilience of fungal composition to warming was seen in all plant species regardless of how dissimilar the communities are between plant species. For instance, Psychotria nervosa and H. patens had the most different fungal communities from all other plant species with community composition of foliar endophytes in these two species just as resilient to heating to the communities in Conocarpus erectus, Ernodea litoralis, Guaiacum sanctum, and Myrcianthes fragrans . Random forest analysis The random forest analysis identified four ESVs whose abundance patterns were predictive of temperature treatments. These included two Basidiomycota, a fungal ESV from the class Cystobasidiomycetes and Kondoa sp. from the class Agaricostilbomycetes as well as an Ascomycota – Zasmidium citrigriseum (class Dothideomycetes) – and an fungal ESV that has not been previously classified. Of these four ESVs, three showed decreased abundance with warming, whereas one (the Basidiomycota ESV belonging to the class Cystobasidiomycetes) increased on average under warming conditions. Discussion Fungal endophytes have important influences on plant performance and plant environmental tolerances and changes in fungal endophytes may be one mechanism through which plants can indirectly acclimate to environmental changes. As such an important consideration that will influence how resilient or threatened plant communities are to climate change is the effect of rising temperatures on the diversity and composition of fungal endophytes within individual plants. Indeed, climate change can disrupt plant–microbe interactions through altered context dependency, temporal mismatches, and spatial mismatches (Rudgers et al. 2020), suggesting that shifts in endophyte communities may represent a key pathway by which warming reshapes plant resilience. Our experimental warming treatments did not lead to any consistent or significant changes in the richness or composition of leaf fungal endophytes within individuals of our six focal tree species, indicating that these symbiotic relationships may be resistant to spikes in temperature. While endophyte communities were stable across heating treatments, plant species identity accounted for 1/3 of the variation in endophyte community composition among leaves in our study. This result emphasizes the importance of host plant identity in endophyte communities of subtropical plants, which is consistent with findings in other ecosystems (Laforest-Lapointe et al. 2016, Li et al. 2023). These results highlight several emerging patterns in the burgeoning literature on how climate warming affects endophytic microbes, such as plant species-specific endophyte communities can be stable in the face of warming conditions and this stability may be common across time scales, ecosystems, plant compartments, and experimental designs. For instance, at the end of a long-term (23-year) field experiment in a permanent grassland ecosystem that warmed plots ~2°C, Kazenel et al., (2019) found there were no significant effects of warming on leaf endophyte diversity and community composition across three species of perennial grasses. In terms of plant compartments, previous studies of root fungal endophytes have exhibited similar trends to our foliar endophyte study, where the overall diversity and composition was not affected by experimental warming (Lyons et al., 2021), and plant species identity had a strong influence on the fungal community composition. Similarly, in another experimental warming study where open-top warming chambers were used to elevate air temperatures by 1-4 °C, site and soil characteristics, rather than temperature, were the main factors affecting root fungal community composition in plants (Fujimura et al., 2008). Conversely, Edwards et al. (2025) found that warming reduced colonization by septate fungi by 90% in leaves and 35% in roots, and also decreased fungal diversity and altered community composition; however, their findings were based on grassland warming experiments in the United States that spanned 2–25 years across a 2,000-km gradient. The weak effect of leaf temperatures on endophyte diversity and composition may indicate that leaf fungal endophyte communities are resilient to warming. Furthermore, this thermal resilience in endophyte communities can be important for host plants’ success. For instance, previous research has shown that seedlings inoculated with thermotolerant endophytes show higher survival rates and higher shoot/root growth under high temperatures when compared to untreated seedlings (Sangamesh et al., 2017). Moreover, fungal endophytes have been proven to help in the establishment of plants to high-stress habitats by conferring them with a high heat tolerance (Rodriguez et al., 2008). This resilience could have positive implications for the fitness of native plant species through stable host-symbiont associations under future climate change scenarios. However, while the overall community appears resilient to elevated temperatures, results from the random forest analysis indicate that individual endophyte taxa may still respond to thermal variation, implicating warming in ecological filtering or shifts in symbiotic dynamics of particularly thermal tolerant or susceptible taxa. A previous study assessing the thermal tolerance of endophytic fungal isolates indicated that certain operational taxonomic units can persist unaffected at temperatures as high as 45°C (Sangamesh et al., 2017). Furthermore, endophytic fungal strains isolated from a plant species in a hot region of northwestern Australia demonstrated that the majority of the fungi tested were capable of growing at 30°C, with one species thriving at 50°C (Dastogeer et al., 2019). However, the predictability of these fungal responses to climate change remains uncertain due to the scarcity of available data (Kivlin & Rudgers, 2019; Lyons et al., 2021). Nonetheless, more work is needed on this topic since loss or gain of particular taxa can have important consequences for plants and ecosystems. For instance, recent work on multidimensional environmental niches of microbes showed that specialist taxa, which are microbes with narrow niche breadths across a suite of climate axes, are more likely to serve as keystone microbes providing important ecosystem services, including beneficial plant symbiosis (Hernandez et al 2023; Rawstern et al 2025). Because specialist species have narrow niche breadths across many axes, including temperature, these taxa may be particularly susceptible to changing climates, and their loss could have important consequences. The absence of a strong temperature effect on leaf fungal endophyte communities may have both positive and negative implications for plant hosts, depending on ecological context. On one hand, this stability could be advantageous, as it suggests that beneficial symbiotic associations remain intact despite thermal stress, potentially maintaining plant support functions such as growth promotion, pathogen resistance, and stress tolerance (Ismail et al., 2018). These stable relationships could help subtropical plants endure warming without disruption to microbial-mediated benefits. However, this lack of community turnover may also be limiting. Microbial community shifts, including the acquisition of novel or more thermotolerant symbionts, have been shown to enhance host resilience in other systems (Carrell et al., 2022). If the existing endophyte community lacks sufficient functional plasticity to cope with intensifying environmental stressors, the host plant’s ability to adapt or acclimate to climate change may be constrained. Thus, whether endophyte community resistance to warming is ultimately beneficial or detrimental may depend on whether current symbionts can continue to meet host physiological needs under future environmental conditions. Our study provides novel insights into the resilience of leaf fungal endophyte communities in subtropical tree species to experimental warming. Despite marked increases in leaf temperatures, we did not observe significant changes in endophyte richness or composition across the six focal tree species. The complex relationship between fungal endophytes and their host plants, particularly in the context of global warming, highlights the need for further study of these systems in tropical and subtropical forests. Data Availability Statement Data and code supporting the findings of this study are publicly available on Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18270420. 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Study Species and Environmental Tolerances Species Common Name Light Preference Temperature Tolerance Drought Tolerance Soil Preference Citation Hamelia patens Firebush Full sun to partial shade Moderate Moderate High pH (alkaline) soils Gilman & Meerow, 1999 Conocarpus erectus Buttonwood Full sun High High Well-drained, saline soils Rehman et al., 2019 Ernodea litoralis Golden creeper Full sun High High Well-drained, sandy Francis, 2004 Psychotria nervosa Wild Coffee Partial shade Low– Moderate Low– Moderate Well-drained, non-saline FNPS, 2024b Myrcianthes fragrans Simpson’s stopper Full sun to partial shade High High Calcareous, sandy, rocky soils FNPS, 2024a Guaiacum sanctum Tree of life Full sun to partial shade High Very high Clay, sand, loam, wide pH range Gilman et al., 2022 Table 2 Linear mixed models fit by Restricted Maximum Likelihood Table 3 Linear mixed models fit by Restricted Maximum Likelihood Table 4 Results of Paired t-Tests Comparing Species Richness in Control and Heated Leaves Pre- and Post-Treatment Table 5 Results of a PERMANOVA test based on redundancy analysis (RDA) for assessing Community composition differences Figure legends: Figure 1 Variation in leaf temperature difference between heated and non-heated leaves over the course of two weeks for each individual of each species. Figure 2 Pairwise comparisons illustrating richness differences between pre- and post-treatment in unheated and heated leaves. Each line represents one individual. Each box represents a species. C: Conocarpus erectus , E: Ernodea litoralis , H: Hamelia patens , L: Guaiacum sanctum , M: Myrcianthes fragrans and P: Psychotria nervosa . Figure 3 Distance-based redundancy analysis of community composition of fungal communities in A. all plant species, and B. in individual plant species ( C: Conocarpus erectus , E: Ernodea litoralis , H: Hamelia patens , L: Guaiacum sanctum ; M: Myrcianthes fragrans and P: Psychotria nervosa ). The ellipses around data points show the 95% confidence interval for each species. The plots in B are the same points from A, but filtered to only display the data points for that species. Information & Authors Information Version history V1 Version 1 17 January 2026 Copyright This work is licensed under a Non Exclusive No Reuse License. Keywords community ecology ecological experiment laboratory microbial sequencing terrestrial Authors Affiliations Olga Tserej Vazquez 0000-0002-7075-4989 [email protected] BLUE Missions View all articles by this author Damian Hernandez University of Toronto View all articles by this author Amanda Rawstern University of Miami - Coral Gables Campus View all articles by this author Kasey Kiesewetter The University of Waikato View all articles by this author Brianna Almeida North Carolina State University at Raleigh View all articles by this author Michelle E. Afkhami University of Miami - Coral Gables Campus View all articles by this author Kenneth Feeley 0000-0002-3618-1144 University of Miami - Coral Gables Campus View all articles by this author Metrics & Citations Metrics Article Usage 207 views 128 downloads .FvxKWukQNSOunydq8rnd { width: 100px; } Citations Download citation Olga Tserej Vazquez, Damian Hernandez, Amanda Rawstern, et al. 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