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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Albany, California » Plant Gene Expression Center » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #334067
Title: Drought-induced shifts in the root microbiome

Author
item NAYLOR, DAN - University Of California
item DENG, SIWEN - University Of California
item XU, LING - University Of California
item Coleman-Derr, Devin

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/1/2016
Publication Date: 4/15/2016
Citation: Naylor, D., Deng, S., Xu, L., Coleman-Derr, D.A. 2016. Drought-induced shifts in the root microbiome. Meeting Abstract. Plant Microbial Interactions Symposium, Joint Genome Institute

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: A subset of plant-associated bacteria and fungi offer benefits to crop species through increasing nutrient and resource uptake efficiency, out-competing plant pathogens, and improving abiotic stress response. There is considerable interest in using plant growth promoting microbes (PGPM) to improve tolerance to environmental challenges, such as drought. One of the remaining challenges is to identify those bacteria and fungi which tolerate drought conditions, remain competitive in an agricultural setting, and which confer help their plant hosts to adapt. The objective of this project was to identify bacteria that are more abundant in roots and rhizospheres of drought-stressed plants than in those of well-watered controls. Using 16S rRNA amplicon profiling of rhizosphere and root endospheres of many cereal crops, we have identified a root-specific increase in many genera of Actinobacteria under water-limited conditions. We are working towards further functional and genomic characterization of these microbes to assess their potential for improving crop performance.