Community context supersedes species identity in bacterial interactions and disease outcomes in the tomato phyllosphere

In a 16-member synthetic tomato phyllosphere community, community-conditioned media suppressed growth substantially more than the average member effects, yet never beyond the most suppressive single strain.

• Why it matters: Predicting microbiome function from individual taxa is difficult because ecological interactions can reshape behavior, and this limits forecasting disease outcomes on plant surfaces.
• What they did: The study combined whole-genome sequencing, phenotypic profiling, and reciprocal spent-media assays across over 600 single-species and community combinations, then tested disease effects on tomato seedlings.
• The result: In vivo, no single strain significantly reduced disease from Pseudomonas syringae, but communities were disease suppressive; this contrasted with in vitro commensal-like behavior and showed outcomes are hard to predict from individual traits.

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