Strawberry microbiome assembly along the fruit development provides insights into food safety and health

Plants are holobionts, and their microbiota play critical roles in growth, health, and abiotic stress resilience. Plant-specific microbiome assembly has previously been demonstrated for different plant species; however, how microbial communities are assembled along the fruit development and how this translates onto fruit quality and postharvest storage is less well known. We applied high-throughput sequencing of bacterial and fungal community, and real-time qPCR to investigate the fruit microbiome assembly in strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa ) plants