Secret collaborations: How Archaea interact with their plant host

Julian Taffner (Graz): Plant holobionts are known to harbour a wide diversity of microorganisms, such as bacteria and fungi, influencing plant nutrition, resistance to stress and fitness. Re-cent studies have shown that, despite of being known as extremophiles, Archaea can also be found on plants as part of their microbiome, but their functions and in-teractions with their hosts remain mostly unclear. To get a broader insight into the community structure, habitat preferences and functions of plant-associated Ar-chaea, we compared 41 different agriculturally used plant-species from the mediter-ranean area, Austria and Eastern Africa as well as the vegetation of alpine raised bogs from upper Styria (Austria). Therefore, we used a combined approach of new OMICS- and visualization-techniques. Our findings reveal a new potential of Ar-chaea to play a role for plant holobionts and to interact with other microorganisms.