Temperature effects on life history strategies for rapid growth potential of leaf epiphytic bacteria.

Elevated temperature is linked to a shift toward r-strategists in leaf phyllosphere bacteria, shown by higher rrn copy numbers for rapid growth potential in alpine meadow communities.

• Why it matters: Temperature-driven changes at the plant–atmosphere interface are poorly resolved, especially how leaf-associated bacterial communities assemble and which life-history strategies they adopt under warming.
• What they did: The study combined elevational-gradient observations with a controlled warming experiment across four plant species, using community composition, assembly metrics, rrn copy-number estimates, and genome/metagenome data from warming-responsive epiphytic isolates.
• The result: Across 880 public 16S rRNA datasets from 45 locations on six continents, leaf epiphytic communities show a global increase in rrn copy number associated with elevated temperatures and enhanced diurnal fluctuation.

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