Within-host adaptation alters priority effects within the phyllosphere microbiome

Abstract

To predict microbiome composition and function over time, it is essential to understand how evolution alters priority effects between resident and invading species. In an experimental evolution study on tomato plants, an early-colonizing bacterial species rapidly evolved to invade a new niche, altering its ecological interactions with other members of the plant microbiome, as well as its effect on the host. Prevailing models have assumed that adaptation primarily improves the efficiency of resident species within their existing niches, yet we conclude that host habitats can offer alternative evolutionary opportunities, complicating the application of existing theory to the community ecology of microbiomes.