Abstract
Mediterranean ecosystems, one of the most significant global hotspots of biodiversity, are threatened by invasive weeds. Although endomicrobiomes – the vast array of microbes colonising living plant tissues – are known to affect plant fitness, their contribution to weed invasiveness remains virtually unknown. Here, we experimentally assess the role of the endomicrobiome in the invasiveness of Taraxacum officinale (common dandelion), a widespread weed in Mediterranean ecosystems worldwide. In a culling experiment across five generations, we compare the fitness of T. officinale from these ecosystems on five continents grown with intact or reduced native seed-borne endomicrobiomes. Additionally, we report a competition experiment with F1 and F5 individuals assessing their impacts on native local Asteraceae species. We found that T. officinale individuals harboring intact endomicrobiomes show faster and more favorable trait development compared with individuals with reduced endomicrobiomes. Enhanced competitiveness of endomicrobiome-colonised T. officinale plants with local Asteraceae species is apparently caused by increased synthesis of allelochemicals in shoots and rhizosphere soil, with gene expression analyses also showing the endomicrobiome to affect the expression by T. officinale of stress response and RNA-directed DNA methylation genes. Our findings provide insights into the mechanisms underlying weed invasiveness in Mediterranean ecosystems.
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Data availability
Data tables used for the generation of the plots shown in Figs. 1–5, have been deposited in a publicly available Figshare repository (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.28127108). The transcriptome assembly generated in this study, as well as the annotated sequences used as templates for qPCR primer design are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.30707714. Supplementary Data 1-14 are also provided with this paper, in the Supplementary Information File.
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Acknowledgements
We thank S. Acuña, N. Morán, M. Oviedo, R. Munita, R. Berrios, C. Smith, R. Morris, D. Basterrica, M. Pastor, R. Nkos, M. Botha, A. Smith and S. Levi for their assistance in the field sampling, greenhouse experiments and the laboratory analyses. We also thank Alex Fajardo and Kari Saikkonen for their helpful comments.
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M.A.M-M., I.S.A-R., C.T-D., and C.A. developed the original idea presented in the manuscript. The experiments were designed, and glasshouse data were collected, by M.A.M-M., F.C-U., V.M.E., R.H., F.F-P., P.E.G., A.U., and A.V. Lab analyses were done by G.B., E.C-N., S.G-L., and R.H. Bioinformatic analyses were done by G.B. and R.H. Statistical analyses were done by I.S.A-R. and V.M.E. The first manuscript was written by M.A.M-M. and K.K.N with inputs from co-authors. V.M.E, MD-B., L.Y.G., P.E.G., R.O-H., S.G-L., D.M.R., L.R.P. and A.E.Z. contributed to the writing of subsequent drafts. All co-authors contributed to the final draft.
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Molina-Montenegro, M.A., Acuña-Rodríguez, I.S., Atala, C. et al. The endomicrobiome and weed invasiveness in Mediterranean ecosystems worldwide.
Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68826-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68826-1
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