This first visit will be to set up air samplers in 3 locations on the reserve. They will be out for the duration of my sampling and will be removed at my last sampling visit this spring/summer. This project seeks to combine recent efforts at mapping the phylodiversity of California with a survey of the microbial diversity in a community of plants found in coastal prairie that by definition of its habitat is confined to a narrow band along the coast (thus providing comparable points along a gradient). Tissue will be collected and assessed separately for microbial communities in leaf (a combined phyllo/endosphere) and root (rhizosphere) using 16s and ITS amplicon sequencing. Coastal prairie is a habitat susceptible to climate change as altered precipitation regimes and lower instance and duration of coastal fogs may enhance salt stress and drought, as well as increase vulnerability to pathogens. Much of this habitat also faces various levels of disturbance, from invasive species to coastal development, so are high risk areas. It also contains sites of high endemism, making it a target for conservation. The aim of this study is to contribute to our understanding of the distribution patterns of plant microbiomes and their relatedness to other distributions as part of a larger co-occurrence dataset.

Approved