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Publications

Journal Article Ppublish

PubMed: 40770104 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09316-0

A diverse and distinct microbiome inside living trees.

Nature 644(8078):1039-1048

Authors: Wyatt Arnold, Jonathan Gewirtzman, Peter A Raymond, Marlyse C Duguid, Craig R Brodersen, Cade Brown, Naomi Norbraten, Qespi T'ika Vizcarra Wood, Mark A Bradford, Jordan Peccia

Affiliations

  • Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
  • Yale School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
  • Yale School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
  • The Forest School, Yale School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
  • Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
  • Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco, Cusco, Peru.
  • Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.

Abstract

Despite significant advances in microbiome research across various environments 1, the microbiome of Earth's largest biomass reservoir-the wood of living trees 2-remains largely unexplored. Here, we illuminate the microbiome inhabiting and adapted to wood and further specialized to individual host tree species, revealing that wood is a harbour of biodiversity and potential key players in tree health and forest ecosystem functions. We demonstrate that a single tree hosts approximately one trillion bacteria in its woody tissues, with microbial communities distinctly partitioned between heartwood and sapwood, each maintaining unique microbiomes with minimal similarity to other plant tissues or ecosystem components. The heartwood microbiome emerges as a particularly unique ecological niche, distinguished by specialized archaea and anaerobic bacteria driving consequential biogeochemical processes. Our findings support the concept of plants as 'holobionts' 3,4-integrated ecological units of host and associated microorganisms-with implications for tree health, disease and functionality. By characterizing the composition, structure and functions of tree internal microbiomes, our work opens up pathways for understanding tree physiology and forest ecology and establishes a new frontier in environmental microbiology.

MeSH

Ecosystem, Tissues, Bacteria, Wood, Forests