The root enrichment of bacteria is consistent across different stress-resistant plant species

• Published in: PeerJ (San Francisco, CA) Vol. 11; p. e14683
• Main Authors: Huang, Feng, Zhu, Congyi, Huang, Minli, Song, Xiaobing, Peng, Aitian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States PeerJ. Ltd 17.01.2023; PeerJ, Inc; PeerJ Inc
• Subjects: Amplicon sequencing; Bacteria; Biological diversity; Burkholderia; Carbon; Ecology; Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid; Exudates; Flowers & plants; Microbiology; Microbiota; Molecular Biology; Phylogenetics; Phylogeny; Plant Roots - microbiology; Plant Science; Plant-microbe interaction; Plants; Rhizosphere; Rhizosphere community; Root; Seeds; Soil Microbiology; Soil Science; Taxonomy; Veganism; Wildlife conservation; United States > US; China; Microbial richness; Microbiota; Plant-microbe interaction; Root; Abiotic stress; Amplicon sequencing; Microbial diversity; Rhizosphere community; Bacteria; Pantoea
• ISSN: 2167-8359; 2167-8359
• DOI: 10.7717/peerj.14683

Bacteria, inhabiting around and in plant roots, confer many beneficial traits to promote plant growth and health. The secretion of root exudates modulates the nutritional state of the rhizosphere and root area, further selecting specific bacteria taxa and shaping the bacteria communities. Many studies of the rhizosphere effects have demonstrated that selection by the plant rhizosphere consistently enriches a set of bacteria taxa, and this is conserved across different plant species. Root selection effects are considered to be stronger than the rhizosphere selection effects, yet studies are limited. Here, we focus on the root selection effects across a group of 11 stress-resistant plant species. We found that the root selection consistently reduced the alpha diversity (represented by total number of observed species, Shannon's diversity, and phylogenetic diversity) and altered the structure and composition of bacteria communities. Furthermore, root selection tended to enrich for clusters of bacteria genera including , , , , - , , , , , and . Our study offers some basic knowledge for understanding the microbial ecology of the plant root, and suggests that several bacteria genera are of interest for future studies.