Abstract
Understanding the behavior of communities is one of the greatest challenges of Ecology. One factor complicating community ecology is observing and studying communities that are unseen. Microbial communities living on and in plant leaves can have important effects on their host plants and, by extension, the ecosystem. In this study we sampled and compared the external and internal microbial communities from the leaves of three basin big sagebrush plants (Artemisia tridentata tridentata) in the Dry Creek area of the Boise foothills over the course of six months. We asked how these microbial communities change over time, in response to variation in climatic factors, and how they are affected by chemical properties of their host plant. Interestingly, our initial results indicate significant change of these communities in as short as a month. We expect that this research will yield knowledge that is applicable to further understanding community behavior, sagebrush health, and the health of the ecosystem.