PRELIMINARY DIVERSITY STUDIES OF CULTURABLE PHYLLOSPHERE BACTERIA ON CHESTNUT (CASTANEA SATIVA)

In this work we isolated the culturable bacterial community from the phyllosphere of chestnut trees (Castanea sativa) and analysed its fluctuation along a year period. A total of 360 bacterial isolates were collected at different times (June, August and October) from 10 trees. The isolates were grouped into five phenotypes: unpigmented, yellows, oranges, roses and melanin producers. The taxonomic position of 9 isolates belonging to these 5 phenotypes was determined by 16S rDNA sequencing. Five different genera were found among them: Paenibacillus, Sphingomonas, Acinetobacter, Staphylococcus, Bacillus, Klebsiella, and Pseudomonas. This result suggests that the genetic diversity of the bacterial community was very high.