Beta-diversity of bacterial communities present in leaves of <i>S. purpurea</i> from NY and FL sampling locations using the Unifrac metric.

<p>Bacterial community structure was assessed by sequencing 16S rRNA genes as described in the text. A phylogenetic tree was generated by inserting partial gene sequences recovered in this study into a tree based on near-full length sequences, implemented within the software package ARB. The phylogenetic tree was analyzed using the software package Unifrac, and a pair-wise distance matrix was generated for comparison of the bacterial community in each leaf. This matrix was used to generate a MDS plot, demonstrating distinct bacterial communities in FL and NY leaves.