Identification of beneficial and detrimental bacteria impacting sorghum responses to drought using multi-scale and multi-system microbiome comparisons.

ABSTRACT: Drought is a major abiotic stress limiting agricultural productivity. Previous field-level experiments have demonstrated that drought decreases microbiome diversity in the root and rhizosphere. How these changes ultimately affect plant health remains elusive. Toward this end, we combined reductionist, transitional and ecological approaches, applied to the staple cereal crop sorghum to identify key root-associated microbes that robustly affect drought-stressed plant phenotypes. Fifty-three Arabidopsis-associated bacteria were applied to sorghum seeds and their effect on root growth was monitored. Two Arthrobacter strains caused root growth inhibition (RGI) in Arabidopsis and sorghum. In the context of synthetic communities, Variovorax strains were able to protect plants from Arthrobacter-ca

SUBMITTER: Qi M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9296637 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature