Abstract 2642 Spatial Variation within the phyllosphere

The phyllosphere hosts microorganisms like bacteria and fungi which are essential to plant health. Composition of bacterial phyllosphere communities can change spatially depending on what kind of environment the plant is in, potentially altering what benefits the host will gain from the microbial community. We investigated the spatial variability of cultivable phyllosphere bacteria of the California black oak to determine genetic variation in species shared across separated populations in the Sierra Nevada and coastal range.