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Plant Seeds Commonly Host Bacillus spp., Potential Antagonists of Phytopathogens

  • Environmental Microbiology
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Abstract

In agriculture, horticulture and plantation forestry, Bacillus species are the most commonly applied antagonists and biopesticides, targeting plant pathogens and insect pests, respectively. Bacillus isolates are also used as bacterial plant biostimulants, or BPBs. Such useful isolates of Bacillus are typically sourced from soil. Here, we show that Bacillus – and other antagonistic microbes – can be sourced from a broad range of plant seeds. We found that culturable Bacillus isolates are common in the seeds of 98 plant species representing 39 families (i.e., 87% of the commonly cultured bacteria belonged to Bacillales). We also found that 83% of the commonly cultured fungi from the seeds of the 98 plant species belonged to just three orders of fungi—Pleosporales, Hypocreales and Eurotiales—that are also associated with antagonism. Furthermore, we confirmed antagonism potential in agaro with seed isolates of Bacillus from Pinus monticola as a representative case. Eight isolates each of seed Bacillus, seed fungi, and foliar fungi, all from P. monticola, were paired in a total of 384 possible pair-wise interactions (with seed and foliar fungi as the targets). Seed Bacillus spp. were the strongest antagonists of the seed and foliar fungi, with a mean interaction strength 2.8 times greater than seed fungi (all either Eurotiales or Hypocreales) and 3.2 times greater than needle fungi. Overall, our study demonstrates that seeds host a taxonomically narrow group of culturable, antagonistic bacteria and fungi.

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Data Availability

The sequence data generated in this study are available in GenBank (see accession numbers in Tables 1–3). Antagonism assay data are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr. Alexey Shipunov for his advice with statistics, and Devin Leopold, Lucas Nebert and Gillian Bergmann for commenting on an earlier draft of this manuscript. The Pinus monticola seeds were generously provided by the Intermountain Forestry Cooperative based at the University of Idaho. We are grateful to Dr. Jos Houbraken and his laboratory group at the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute in the Netherlands for sequencing and identifying the Penicillium species. Finally, we would like to thank Dr. Brenda Schroeder and Diana Cervantes for sequencing and identifying some seed bacteria.

Funding

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Science Engineering and Education for Sustainability Award 1314095 (PEB). This project was also supported by the NSF Center for Advanced Forestry Systems (CAFS) Award 16.67 (Mark Coleman and GN).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forest, Rangeland and Fire Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, 83844-1133, USA

    George Newcombe & Maria Marlin

  2. Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA

    Edward Barge, Sabrina Heitmann & Posy E. Busby

  3. University of Idaho Extension Washington County, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Weiser, ID, 83672, USA

    Mary Ridout

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  1. George Newcombe
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  2. Maria Marlin
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  3. Edward Barge
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  4. Sabrina Heitmann
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  5. Mary Ridout
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  6. Posy E. Busby
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Contributions

GN and PEB conceived of the study and wrote the manuscript. MR collected the seed microbes. EB and SH characterized the seed microbes and conducted phylogenetic analysis. MM conducted the antagonism assays and antagonism analysis. All authors consented to participation and publication.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Posy E. Busby.

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Ethical Approval

No ethical approval is required because this study was conducted with unregulated species. The authors have no financial interests to disclose.

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Newcombe, G., Marlin, M., Barge, E. et al. Plant Seeds Commonly Host Bacillus spp., Potential Antagonists of Phytopathogens. Microb Ecol 85, 1356–1366 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-022-02024-6

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