Root zone diazotrophs of wheat in coastal saline soils from water-scarce regions of the Bohai Sea.

The root-zone microbiome of wheat, encompassing root, rhizosphere and bulk soil communities, harbors diverse diazotrophs that critically enhance wheat nitrogen use efficiency, promote wheat growth, and improve abiotic stress tolerance. Despite their agricultural significance, the composition and temporal dynamics of these beneficial diazotroph communities in saline-alkali ecosystems remain poorly resolved, particularly under the stresses of aridity and soil salinity. Systematic profiling of wheat-associated diazotroph ecology is imperative for developing innovative solutions to enhance wheat resilience and advance sustainable agriculture. This study provides detailed microbiome data from wheat root-soil interface, consisting of root, rhizosphere and bulk soil samples collected from saline-alkali fields in the water-scarce Bohai Sea region of China. Through high-throughput sequencing of nifH gene, we generated an extensive dataset with an average of 60,265 high-quality reads per sample. The dataset provides a valuable resource for uncovering the recruitment strategies of wheat root-enriched diazotrophs to adapt to varying salinity stress and facilitating the development of novel microbiome based strategies for sustainable agricultural practices in saline-alkali ecosystems.