No abstract

The Pseudomonas syringae complex is composed of numerous genetic lineages of strains from both agricultural and environmental habitats including habitats closely linked to the water cycle. The new insights from the discovery of this bacterial species in habitats outside of agricultural contexts per se have led to the revelation of a wide diversity of strains in this complex beyond what was known from agricultural contexts. Here, through Multi Locus Sequence Typing (MLST) of 216 strains, we identified 23 clades within 13 phylogroups among which the seven previously described P. syringae phylogroups were included. The phylogeny of the core genome of 29 strains representing nine phylogroups was similar to the phylogeny obtained with MLST thereby confirming the robustness of MLST-phylogroups. We show that phenotypic traits rarely provide a satisfactory means for classification of strains even if some combinations are highly probable in some phylogroups. We demonstrate that the citrate synthase (cts) housekeeping gene can accurately predict the phylogenetic affiliation for more than 97% of strains tested. We propose a list of cts sequences to be used as a simple tool for quickly and precisely classifying new strains. Finally, our analysis leads to predictions about the diversity of P. syringae that is yet to be discovered. We present here an expandable framework mainly based on cts genetic analysis into which more diversity can be integrated.

Pseudomonas syringae is a plant pathogen well known for its capacity to grow epiphytically on diverse plants and for its ice-nucleation activity. The ensemble of its known biology and ecology led us to postulate that this bacterium is also present in non-agricultural habitats, particularly those associated with water. Here, we report the abundance of P. syringae in rain, snow, alpine streams and lakes and in wild plants, in addition to the previously reported abundance in epilithic biofilms. Each of these substrates harbored strains that corresponded to P. syringae in terms of biochemical traits, pathogenicity and pathogenicity-related factors and that were ice-nucleation active. Phylogenetic comparisons of sequences of four housekeeping genes of the non-agricultural strains with strains of P. syringae from disease epidemics confirmed their identity as P. syringae. Moreover, strains belonging to the same clonal lineage were isolated from snow, irrigation water and a diseased crop plant. Our data suggest that the different substrates harboring P. syringae modify the structure of the associated populations. Here, we propose a comprehensive life cycle for P. syringae-in agricultural and non-agricultural habitats-driven by the environmental cycle of water. This cycle opens the opportunity to evaluate the importance of non-agricultural habitats in the evolution of a plant pathogen and the emergence of virulence. The ice-nucleation activity of all strains from snow, unlike from other substrates, strongly suggests that P. syringae plays an active role in the water cycle as an ice nucleus in clouds.

Despite the integral role of ice nucleators (IN) in atmospheric processes leading to precipitation, their sources and distributions have not been well established. We examined IN in snowfall from mid- and high-latitude locations and found that the most active were biological in origin. Of the IN larger than 0.2 micrometer that were active at temperatures warmer than -7 degrees C, 69 to 100% were biological, and a substantial fraction were bacteria. Our results indicate that the biosphere is a source of highly active IN and suggest that these biological particles may affect the precipitation cycle and/or their own precipitation during atmospheric transport.