Diversity of culturable phyllosphere bacteria on beech and oak: the effects of lepidopterous larvae

The community composition of epiphytic heterotrophic bacteria on leaves of beech and oak, which were either damaged by lepidopterous larvae or remained undamaged, was investigated. In addition, the ability of these bacteria to utilize inorganic nitrogen was studied. The bacteria were isolated on nutrient agar and systematically identified with biochemical and physiological tests. Rarefaction plots and the Shannon-Wiener function revealed that species diversity was significantly higher on leaves of damaged beech compared to undamaged leaves, but no differences were found on leaves of oak. The portion of bacterial isolates showing a strong response to ammonia and nitrate was significantly larger on leaves of oak than on those of beech. Furthermore, significantly more isolates with a high capability to assimilate both nitrogen compounds were found on leaves attacked by the folivorous larvae compared to those not attacked on oak. It is suggested that the changes in the microbial community in response to folivorous insects might affect the extent of nutrient cycling exceeding eventually the scale of a leaf.