Ice nucleating bacteria utilize cold and wet conditions to access the interior of plants.  Although winter annuals such as Arabidopsis thaliana are likely to be exposed to ice nucleating bacteria, this interaction has received little attention.  

Results/Conclusions

Here, we show that ice nucleating bacteria do interact with A. thaliana in nature.  We also present results of common garden experiments from two independent population sets of A. thaliana indicating that seeds stocks from populations in colder environments exhibit greater resistance to the growth of bacterial pathogens.  Finally, we present results of linkage mapping that suggest candidate loci in the A. thaliana genome that may contribute to these differences in plant resistance.