Joint Genome Institute, Walnut Creek CA, USA.
Front Microbiol. 2014 Jun 6;5:283. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2014.00283. eCollection 2014.
The exponential growth in world population is feeding a steadily increasing global need for arable farmland, a resource that is already in high demand. This trend has led to increased farming on subprime arid and semi-arid lands, where limited availability of water and a host of environmental stresses often severely reduce crop productivity. The conventional approach to mitigating the abiotic stresses associated with arid climes is to breed for stress-tolerant cultivars, a time and labor intensive venture that often neglects the complex ecological context of the soil environment in which the crop is grown. In recent years, studies have attempted to identify microbial symbionts capable of conferring the same stress-tolerance to their plant hosts, and new developments in genomic technologies have greatly facilitated such research. Here, we highlight many of the advantages of these symbiont-based approaches and argue in favor of the broader recognition of crop species as ecological niches for a diverse community of microorganisms that function in concert with their plant hosts and each other to thrive under fluctuating environmental conditions.
世界人口的指数级增长正在满足对耕地这一资源不断增长的全球需求，而耕地资源本来就已经供不应求。这种趋势导致人们在次优旱地和半旱地进行更多的耕作，而这些地区的水资源有限，并且存在许多环境压力，这常常严重降低了作物的生产力。缓解干旱气候相关非生物胁迫的传统方法是培育具有耐受胁迫能力的品种，这是一项既耗时又耗力的工作，往往忽略了作物生长所在土壤环境的复杂生态背景。近年来，研究人员试图鉴定能够赋予其植物宿主相同抗胁迫能力的微生物共生体，而基因组技术的新进展极大地促进了这方面的研究。在这里，我们强调了这些基于共生体的方法的许多优势，并主张更广泛地认识到作物物种是一个多样化微生物群落的生态位，这些微生物与它们的植物宿主以及彼此协同作用，在波动的环境条件下茁壮成长。
