Abstract
Plant leaves constitute a huge microbial habitat of global importance. How microorganisms survive the dry daytime on leaves and avoid desiccation is not well understood. There is evidence that microscopic surface wetness in the form of thin films and micrometer-sized droplets, invisible to the naked eye, persists on leaves during daytime due to deliquescence – the absorption of water until dissolution – of hygroscopic aerosols. Here, we study how such microscopic wetness affects cell survival. We show that, on surfaces drying under moderate humidity, stable microdroplets form around bacterial aggregates due to capillary pinning and deliquescence. Notably, droplet-size increases with aggregate-size, and cell survival is higher the larger the droplet. This phenomenon was observed for 13 bacterial species, two of which – Pseudomonas fluorescens and P. putida – were studied in depth. Microdroplet formation around aggregates is likely key to bacterial survival in a variety of unsaturated microbial habitats, including leaf surfaces.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e48508 |
| Journal | eLife |
| Volume | 8 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Oct 2019 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank Y Helman, Y Friedman, Y Hadar, E Jurkevitch, O Yarden, R Holtzman, O Bäumchen, D Sher, A Bren, and S Itzkovitz for valuable comments and discussions. We thank S Lindow, L Eberl, Z Cardon, D Minz, O Bahar, G Sessa, S Burdman, Y Helman, and Y Friedman, for kindly providing bacterial strains. This work was supported by research grants to NK from the James S McDonnell Foundation (Studying Complex Systems Scholar Award, Grant #220020475) and from the Israel Science Foundation (ISF #1396/19).
Publisher Copyright:
© Grinberg et al.