Assembly of root-associated microbial community of typical rice cultivars in different soil types.

Xu, Yan; Ge, Yi; Song, Jianxiao; Rensing, Christopher

Root-associated microbial communities have been widely studied in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, but have been much less explored in agronomically important crops. Here, we used deep pyrosequencing of bacterial 16S rRNA to identify and characterize the root-associated microbial community of three traditional rice cultivars (representing indica and japonica subspecies and a hybrid) cultivated in typical paddy soils from China. We separated the root microbiota into endosphere and rhizosphere compartments, which were found to be the major determinant of variation in the total root microbial community. The microbial communities in each rhizocompartment were strongly influenced by soil type, while rice genotype exhibited a small but significant influence on both endosphere and rhizosphere microbiota. Pairwise comparisons showed that the endophytic bacterial community of indica rice differed significantly from that of japonica rice, while no remarkable differences were noted when comparing the community of indica vs. hybrid or japonica vs. hybrid. A core functional rice endophytic microbiota was identified, which accounted for relative abundances of up to 72.5% of the total microbial community. The 88 core root operational taxonomic units (OTUs) mainly belonged to the phylum Proteobacteria specifically Alphaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, and Deltaproteobacteria. These results clarify the rice root-associated microbial community assemblage and facilitate the construction of an artificial core root microbiota to promote plant growth and resistance.

CHINA; MICROBIAL communities; SOIL classification; RICE; HYBRID rice; CULTIVARS; BACTERIAL communities; RHIZOSPHERE

Biology & Fertility of Soils, 2020, Vol 56, Issue 2, p249

0178-2762

Academic Journal

10.1007/s00374-019-01406-2