plant surface microbiology.pdf

27 Applications of Quantitative Microscopy in Plant Surface Microbiology 535
6.4 CMEIAS v. 3.0: In Situ Analysis of Microbial Communities on Plant
Phylloplanes
In the second example, CMEIAS was used to perform an in situ image analysis
of the microbial communities that developed on phylloplane surfaces of
two corn varieties grown under field conditions: one was a genetically modified
corn genotype engineered to express the insecticide protein made by the
bacterium Bacillus thuriengensis (BT-corn variety Pioneer 3573), and the second
was a control corn (non-BT variety Pioneer 36N05) receiving no insecticide.
Corn leaf disks (4 mm in diameter) were sampled in July, 1999 from
mature field-grown plants cultivated in an Long-Term Ecological Research
[LTER] experimental site at the Michigan State University Kellogg Biological
Station (KBS). Adjacent quadrats (n=26) of digital images were acquired by
scanning electron microscopy at ¥1000 and at ¥100 to resolve the prokaryotic
Fig. 11. Scanning electron
micrographs of the phylloplane
microflora developing
on the leaf surface of
field-grown corn. Images
were acquired at 1000x (A)
and 100x (B) to locate and
analyze the prokaryotic
(bacteria) and eukaryotic
(fungi) microorganisms in
the phylloplane community,
respectively. Scale bar
1 mm in A and 100 mm in B