BackgroundTraditional agro-systems in arid areas are a bulwark for preserving soil stability and fertility, in the sight of “reverse desertification”. Nevertheless, the impact of desert farming practices on the diversity and abundance of the plant associated microbiome is poorly characterized, including its functional role in supporting plant development under drought stress.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe assessed the structure of the microbiome associated to the drought-sensitive pepper plant (Capsicum annuum L.) cultivated in a traditional Egyptian farm, focusing on microbe contribution to a crucial ecosystem service, i.e. plant growth under water deficit. The root system was dissected by sampling root/soil with a different degree of association to the plant: the endosphere, the rhizosphere and the root surrounding soil that were compared to the uncultivated soil. Bacterial community structure and diversity, determined by using Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis, differed according to the microhabitat, indicating a selective pressure determined by the plant activity. Similarly, culturable bacteria genera showed different distribution in the three root system fractions. Bacillus spp. (68% of the isolates) were mainly recovered from the endosphere, while rhizosphere and the root surrounding soil fractions were dominated by Klebsiella spp. (61% and 44% respectively). Most of the isolates (95%) presented in vitro multiple plant growth promoting (PGP) activities and stress resistance capabilities, but their distribution was different among the root system fractions analyzed, with enhanced abilities for Bacillus and the rhizobacteria strains. We show that the C. annuum rhizosphere under desert farming enriched populations of PGP bacteria capable of enhancing plant photosynthetic activity and biomass synthesis (up to 40%) under drought stress.Conclusions/SignificanceCrop cultivation provides critical ecosystem services in arid lands with the plant root system acting as a “resource island” able to attract and select microbial communities endowed with multiple PGP traits that sustain plant development under water limiting conditions.

Although drought is an increasing problem in agriculture, the contribution of the root-associated bacterial microbiome to plant adaptation to water stress is poorly studied. We investigated if the culturable bacterial microbiome associated with five grapevine rootstocks and the grapevine cultivar Barbera may enhance plant growth under drought stress. Eight isolates, over 510 strains, were tested in vivo for their capacity to support grapevine growth under water stress. The selected strains exhibited a vast array of plant growth promoting (PGP) traits, and confocal microscopy observation of gfp-labelled Acinetobacter and Pseudomonas isolates showed their ability to adhere and colonize both the Arabidopsis and grapevine rhizoplane. Tests on pepper plants fertilized with the selected strains, under both optimal irrigation and drought conditions, showed that PGP activity was a stress-dependent and not a per se feature of the strains. The isolates were capable of increasing shoot and leaf biomass, shoot length, and photosynthetic activity of drought-challenged grapevines, with an enhanced effect in drought-sensitive rootstock. Three isolates were further assayed for PGP capacity under outdoor conditions, exhibiting the ability to increase grapevine root biomass. Overall, the results indicate that PGP bacteria contribute to improve plant adaptation to drought through a water stress-induced promotion ability.

BackgroundThe plant compartments of Vitis vinifera, including the rhizosphere, rhizoplane, root endosphere, phyllosphere and carposphere, provide unique niches that drive specific bacterial microbiome associations. The majority of phyllosphere endophytes originate from the soil and migrate up to the aerial compartments through the root endosphere. Thus, the soil and root endosphere partially define the aerial endosphere in the leaves and berries, contributing to the terroir of the fruit. However, V. vinifera cultivars are invariably grafted onto the rootstocks of other Vitis species and hybrids. It has been hypothesized that the plant species determines the microbiome of the root endosphere and, as a consequence, the aerial endosphere. In this work, we test the first part of this hypothesis. We investigate whether different rootstocks influence the bacteria selected from the surrounding soil, affecting the bacterial diversity and potential functionality of the rhizosphere and root endosphere.MethodsBacterial microbiomes from both the root tissues and the rhizosphere of Barbera cultivars, both ungrafted and grafted on four different rootstocks, cultivated in the same soil from the same vineyard, were characterized by 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing. To assess the influence of the root genotype on the bacterial communities’ recruitment in the root system, (i) the phylogenetic diversity coupled with the predicted functional profiles and (ii) the co-occurrence bacterial networks were determined. Cultivation-dependent approaches were used to reveal the plant-growth promoting (PGP) potential associated with the grafted and ungrafted root systems.ResultsRichness, diversity and bacterial community networking in the root compartments were significantly influenced by the rootstocks. Complementary to a shared bacterial microbiome, different subsets of soil bacteria, including those endowed with PGP traits, were selected by the root system compartments of different rootstocks. The interaction between the root compartments and the rootstock exerted a unique selective pressure that enhanced niche differentiation, but rootstock-specific bacterial communities were still recruited with conserved PGP traits.ConclusionWhile the rootstock significantly influences the taxonomy, structure and network properties of the bacterial community in grapevine roots, a homeostatic effect on the distribution of the predicted and potential functional PGP traits was found.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s40168-017-0391-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Soil salinity and drought are among the environmental stresses that most severely affect plant growth and production around the world. In this study the rhizospheres of Salicornia plants and bulk soils were collected from Sebkhet and Chott hypersaline ecosystems in Tunisia. Depiction of bacterial microbiome composition by Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis unveiled the occurrence of a high bacterial diversity associated with Salicornia root system. A large collection of 475 halophilic and halotolerant bacteria was established from Salicornia rhizosphere and the surrounding bulk soil, and the bacteria were characterized for the resistance to temperature, osmotic and saline stresses, and plant growth promotion (PGP) features. Twenty Halomonas strains showed resistance to a wide set of abiotic stresses and were able to perform different PGP activities in vitro at 5% NaCl, including ammonia and indole-3-acetic acid production, phosphate solubilisation, and potential nitrogen fixation. By using a gfp-labelled strain it was possible to demonstrate that Halomonas is capable of successfully colonising Salicornia roots in the laboratory conditions. Our results indicated that the culturable halophilic/halotolerant bacteria inhabiting salty and arid ecosystems have a potential to contribute to promoting plant growth under the harsh salinity and drought conditions. These halophilic/halotolerant strains could be exploited in biofertilizer formulates to sustain crop production in degraded and arid lands.

Summary Oases are desert‐farming agro‐ecosystems, where date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) plays a keystone role in offsetting the effects of drought and maintaining a suitable microclimate for agriculture. At present, abundance, diversity and plant growth promotion (PGP) of date palm root‐associated bacteria remain unknown. Considering the environmental pressure determined by the water scarcity in the desert environments, we hypothesized that bacteria associated with date palm roots improve plant resistance to drought. Here, the ecology of date palm root endophytes from oases in the Tunisian Sahara was studied with emphasis on their capacity to promote growth under drought. Endophytic communities segregated along a north–south gradient in correlation with geo‐climatic parameters. Screening of 120 endophytes indicated that date palm roots select for bacteria with multiple PGP traits. Bacteria rapidly cross‐colonized the root tissues of different species of plants, including the original Tunisian date palm cultivar, Saudi Arabian cultivars and Arabidopsis. Selected endophytes significantly increased the biomass of date palms exposed to repeated drought stress periods during a 9‐month greenhouse experiment. Overall, results indicate that date palm roots shape endophytic communities that are capable to promote plant growth under drought conditions, thereby contributing an essential ecological service to the entire oasis ecosystem.