Abstract
Purpose
Rhizosphere bacterial communities (‘rhizobacteria’) can mediate plant-soil feedbacks that enhance plant drought tolerance, but the composition and ecological characteristics of these populations are poorly understood. We investigated the impact of drought on rhizobacteria communities and the effect of propagating drought-impacted communities on the drought tolerance of naïve plants in a two-phase experiment.
Methods
We tested whether propagating rhizosphere soils from drought-stressed shrub willow (Salix purpurea), or continuously watered controls, affected the performance of a subsequent generation of droughted plants. The impacts of drought on rhizobacteria and plant fitness were evaluated using 16S rRNA gene sequencing and measures of plant growth (root mass and stem length etc.) and stress (abscisic acid, osmolality). Uninoculated reference plants were used to isolate the effects of inoculation.
Results
Drought had a significant and lasting impact on the structure of rhizobacterial communities, characterized by increased populations of Actinobacteria (Acidimicrobiia, Thermoleophilia and Micrococcaceae). Foliar osmolality was significantly higher in plants receiving drought-selected communities relative to uninoculated controls, but no significant differences in plant growth were observed. Inoculation with rhizosphere soil from watered controls significantly reduced plant growth. The rhizosphere of watered control plants was dominated by Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes.
Conclusions
Our findings demonstrate that plants are affected by the legacy effects of drought on the rhizosphere microbiome. This drought legacy was propagated and persisted throughout nine weeks of plant growth, independent of prevailing water stress. Drought-impacted rhizospheres had larger populations of desiccation-tolerant (ex. Arthrobacter) and putatively endophytic taxa (ex. Rhizobium) with established plant growth promoting capabilities.
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Data availability
Accessioned at the NCBI under BioProject PRJEB41348.
Abbreviations
- 16S rRNA gene:
-
16S small subunit ribosomal RNA gene.
- PCR:
-
Polymerase chain reaction
- DEA buffer:
-
Diethanolamine buffer
- PPFD:
-
Photosynthetic photon flux density
- ABA:
-
Abscisic acid
- E-phase:
-
Establishment phase, where plants are exposed to the first drought cycle.
- T-phase:
-
Testing phase, where plants are inoculated with soils from the E-phase and exposed to a second drought cycle.
- DRY:
-
Plants exposed to drought cycle treatment
- WET:
-
Well-watered, control plants
- REF:
-
Uninoculated sterile treatment
- D:
-
Plants exposed to a second drought cycle in T-phase
- C:
-
Plants continually well-watered in T-phase
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Larry Smart and his research group for providing plant material, growing advice and access to plantings; Emily Detrick and the Cornell Botanic Gardens for allowing us to collect soil; Hannah Swegarden and Zachary Stansell for collecting and transporting plant materials and soil, and Tim Setter for ABA assays.
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Funding was provided by the Sustainable Biodiversity Fund from the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future and the Schmittau-Novak small grants program the School of Integrative Plant Science to JMU.
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JMU, RCW, DHB and TLB conceived and designed experiments. JMU performed the experiments. RCW and JMU analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript with contributions from all authors.
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Munoz-Ucros, J., Wilhelm, R.C., Buckley, D.H. et al. Drought legacy in rhizosphere bacterial communities alters subsequent plant performance. Plant Soil 471, 443–461 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-021-05227-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-021-05227-x