Abstract
Phyllosphere microbiomes can modulate leaf-associated secondary metabolites in managed grasslands under biotic and abiotic stress. Yet the ecological drivers linking host plants, phyllosphere fungi, and secondary metabolites in warm-season grasslands remain poorly understood. We surveyed 13 cattle ranches across Florida from 2017 to 2019, profiling leaf-associated fungal communities and targeted secondary metabolites in four perennial warm-season grasses. Fungal assemblages and metabolite composition were significantly structured by geography, climate, and host grass species. Warmer, high-irradiance southern sites harbored greater fungal diversity (particularly among foliar endophytes, mycoparasites, and epiphytes) and metabolite chemodiversity, alongside more complex fungal co-occurrence and fungus-metabolite associations. Host identity further partitioned taxa and metabolites across the landscape, yielding site-dependent association patterns that predicted metabolite composition. Together, these results provide field-based evidence that climate- and host-mediated filtering shapes the linkage between phyllosphere microbes and chemical phenotypes, improving our ability to predict microbiome-driven functional outcomes in grasslands under changing climates.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the University of Florida/Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences County Agents for sample collection, and Anna Iriarte and Charles Maclane Suber for helping with sample processing. K.Z. acknowledges support from USDA-NIFA (2024-67019-42344) and the USDA-NIFA Evans-Allen Research Program (accession no. 7011258). H-LL. acknowledges support from USDA-NIFA (2024-67019-42344) and the Florida Cattle Enhancement Board (AWD07069). C.M. and A.B. were supported by the Florida Cattle Enhancement Board (AWD07069). The SEM figure was created at https://BioRender.com.
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Zhang, K., Stansly, V.M., Chen, KH. et al. Biogeographic and climatic determinants of host-specific phyllosphere fungus-secondary metabolite associations.
Commun Earth Environ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03842-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03842-z
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