FIG 3.

LAB are rare in species pools. (A) Abundance of total culturable bacteria (TS agar in blue) and lactic acid bacteria (MRS agar in red) in leaf and soil species pools from 51 farms through the northeastern United States. Each point represents CFU data collected from a pool of five leaf or soil samples from each site. (B) Relative abundance of bacteria found in leaf samples and soil samples at a subset of farms from panel A, as determined with amplicon sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene (V4 region). As with Fig. 2, members of the Lactobacillales are shown at the family level in order to indicate the prevalence of major LAB groups. Each column represents sequence data collected from a pool of five leaf or soil samples from each site. Data from 14 sites are presented. (C) Relative abundance of Lactobacillales in amplicon sequence data collected as part of the Earth Microbiome Project. Points indicate means, and error bars indicate one standard deviation.