Figure 2. Beta-diversity of bacterial communities present in leaves of S. purpurea from NY and FL sampling locations using the Unifrac metric.

Bacterial community structure was assessed by sequencing 16S rRNA genes as described in the text. A phylogenetic tree was generated by inserting partial gene sequences recovered in this study into a tree based on near-full length sequences, implemented within the software package ARB. The phylogenetic tree was analyzed using the software package Unifrac, and a pair-wise distance matrix was generated for comparison of the bacterial community in each leaf. This matrix was used to generate a MDS plot, demonstrating distinct bacterial communities in FL and NY leaves.