Bioprotection Aotearoa, Lincoln University, PO Box 85084, Lincoln 7647, New Zealand.
AgResearch Ltd, 1365 Springs Road, Lincoln 7674, New Zealand.
FEMS Microbiol Ecol. 2023 Oct 17;99(11). doi: 10.1093/femsec/fiad126.
The root-associated soil microbiome contributes immensely to support plant health and performance against abiotic and biotic stressors. Understanding the processes that shape microbial assembly in root-associated soils is of interest in microbial ecology and plant health research. In this study, 37 plant species were grown in the same soil mixture for 10 months, whereupon the root-associated soil microbiome was assessed using amplicon sequencing. From this, the contribution of direct and indirect plant effects on microbial assembly was assessed. Plant species and plant-induced changes in soil physicochemistry were the most significant factors that accounted for bacterial and fungal community variation. Considering that all plants were grown in the same starting soil mixture, our results suggest that plants, in part, shape the assembly of their root-associated soil microbiome via their effects on soil physicochemistry. With the increase in phylogenetic ranking from plant species to class, we observed declines in the degree of community variation attributed to phylogenetic origin. That is, plant-microbe associations were unique to each plant species, but the phylogenetic associations between plant species were not important. We observed a large degree of residual variation (> 65%) not accounted for by any plant-related factors, which may be attributed to random community assembly.
根相关土壤微生物组对支持植物健康和抵御非生物及生物胁迫至关重要。了解塑造根相关土壤中微生物组装的过程是微生物生态学和植物健康研究的热点。在这项研究中，37 种植物在相同的土壤混合物中生长了 10 个月，随后使用扩增子测序评估了根相关土壤微生物组。由此评估了直接和间接植物效应对微生物组装的贡献。植物物种和植物诱导的土壤理化性质变化是解释细菌和真菌群落变异的最重要因素。考虑到所有植物都在相同的起始土壤混合物中生长，我们的结果表明，植物通过对土壤理化性质的影响，在一定程度上塑造了其根相关土壤微生物组的组装。随着从植物物种到类的系统发育等级的增加，我们观察到归因于系统发育起源的群落变异程度下降。也就是说，植物-微生物的关联是每个植物物种特有的，但植物物种之间的系统发育关联并不重要。我们观察到大量无法用任何与植物相关的因素解释的剩余变异（>65%），这可能归因于随机群落组装。
