Nectar resources affect bird‐dispersed microbial metacommunities in suburban and rural gardens

Abstract

As cities expand, understanding how urbanization affects biodiversity is a key ecological goal. Yet, little is known about how host‐associated microbial diversity responds to urbanization. We asked whether communities of microbial (bacterial and fungal) in floral nectar and sugar‐water feeders and vectored by nectar‐feeding birds—thus forming a metacommunity—differed in composition and diversity between suburban and rural gardens. Compared to rural birds, we found that suburban birds vectored different and more diverse bacterial communities. These differences were not detected in the nectar of common plant species, suggesting that nectar filters microbial taxa and results in metacommunity convergence. However, when considering all the nectar sources present, suburban beta diversity was elevated compared to rural beta diversity due to turnover of bacterial taxa across a plant species and sugar‐water feeders. While fungal metacommunity composition and beta diversity in nectar were similar between suburban and rural sites, alpha diversity was elevated in suburban sites, which mirrored the trend of increased fungal alpha diversity on birds. These results emphasize the interdependence of host, vector, and microbial diversity and demonstrate that human decisions can shape nectar microbial diversity in contrasting ways for bacteria and fungi.

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