Food Security and Safety Niche, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, North-West University, Private Mail Bag X2046, Mmabatho, South Africa.
Arch Microbiol. 2021 Aug;203(6):3605-3613. doi: 10.1007/s00203-021-02354-y. Epub 2021 May 11.
Understanding the functions carried out by rhizosphere microbiomes will further explore their importance in biotechnological improvement and agricultural sustainability. This study presents one of the foremost attempts to understand the functional diversity of the rhizosphere microbiome in mono-cropping and crop rotation farming sites using shotgun metagenomic techniques. We hypothesized that the functional diversity would vary in the cropping sites and more abundant in the rotational cropping site. Hence, we carried out complete DNA extraction from the bulk and rhizospheric soils associated with maize plant cultivated on the mono-cropping farm (LT and LTc) and the crop rotation farm (VD and VDc), respectively, and sequenced employing shotgun approach. Using the SEED subsystem, our result revealed that a total of 24 functional categories dominated the rotational cropping site, while four functional categories dominated the mono-cropping sites. Alpha diversity assessment showed that no significant difference (p > 0.05) was observed across the cropping sites, while beta diversity assessment revealed a significant difference. Going by the high abundance of functional groups observed in the samples from the crop rotational site, it is evident that cropping systems influenced the functions of soil microbiomes. Worthy of note is the high abundance of unknown functions associated with these maize rhizosphere microbiomes. This is an indication that there are still some under-investigated functional genes associated with the maize rhizosphere microbiome. It is, therefore, imperative that further studies explore these functional genes for their agricultural and biotechnological potentials.
了解根际微生物组执行的功能将进一步探索它们在生物技术改良和农业可持续性方面的重要性。本研究首次使用高通量宏基因组技术尝试了解单作和轮作种植地点根际微生物组的功能多样性。我们假设在种植地点的功能多样性会有所不同，在轮作种植地点会更加丰富。因此，我们分别从单作农场（LT 和 LTc）和轮作农场（VD 和 VDc）上种植的玉米植株的根际土壤和土壤中提取了完整的 DNA，并采用高通量方法进行了测序。使用 SEED 子系统，我们的结果表明，共有 24 个功能类别主导了轮作种植地点，而四个功能类别主导了单作种植地点。α多样性评估表明，种植地点之间没有观察到显著差异（p > 0.05），而β多样性评估则显示出显著差异。从轮作种植地点样本中观察到的功能群的高丰度可以明显看出，种植系统影响了土壤微生物组的功能。值得注意的是，与这些玉米根际微生物组相关的未知功能的高丰度。这表明仍然有一些与玉米根际微生物组相关的功能基因尚未得到充分研究。因此，进一步的研究探索这些功能基因的农业和生物技术潜力是至关重要的。
