Nicotine
is the most abundant alkaloid of Nicotiana plants. To study the effect
of nicotine on bacterial community composition in floral nectar of Nicotiana
plants, we compared the bacterial communities composition from floral
nectar of wild type N.
attenuata, nicotine silenced
expression N. attenuata, and
wild type N. glauca
plants. Using 454-pyrosequencing, we found that the elimination of a single
secondary compound, drastically affected the bacterial community composition in
floral nectar. The absence of nicotine in the nectar of N. attenuata
reduced the bacterial community diversity in comparison to the wild type. The
bacterial community composition in the nectar of N. attenuata transgenic
plant was more similar to the bacterial community in a different plant species
within the genus (N. glauca) than to the wild type of its own species. It
was shown that the elimination of nicotine from Nicotiana, changed
nectar consumption and visitation by the plant visitors. We showed here that
this elimination changes the bacterial
communities in the nectar, thus, may modify the nutritional content of the
nectar and its volatiles and therefore may cause the differences in nectar
consumption by flower visitors and indirectly affect plant fitness.
