Comparison of Rhizospheric and Endophytic Bacterial Compositions between Netted and Oriental Melons

Abstract

The study of the differential structures and functions of rhizospheric and endophytic bacterial communities between netted melon and oriental melon treatments is investigated. Our findings make a significant contribution to the literature because they are the first step in coupling the study of rhizospheric and endophytic microbial community structure to reticulation formation in netted melon.

Bacterial diversity and composition on the rinds of specific melon cultivars and hybrids from across different growing regions in the United States

“…Previous examination of bacterial communities on melons identified increased bacterial diversity on melons with netted rinds as compared to non-netted rinds [22], however our study found the opposite with non-netted melons consistently having higher alpha diversity compared to netted melons. Although we found that bacterial diversity of non-netted melon rind was higher than netted rinds in this study, such differences could be the result of major differences in melon cultivars examined between the studies, the multiple locations within this PLOS ONE study, or our examination over several growth seasons.…”

“…Both bacterial families are Gram-negative and members of the phylum Pseudomonadota, renamed from Proteobacteria. Interestingly, Xiao et al found Proteobacteria to be the highest in both netted and oriental non-netted melons, similar to our findings [22].…”

“…Although we found that bacterial diversity of non-netted melon rind was higher than netted rinds in this study, such differences could be the result of major differences in melon cultivars examined between the studies, the multiple locations within this PLOS ONE study, or our examination over several growth seasons. Although our results do agree with the results from Xiao et al, who also found that there was a difference among the communities based on the netting of the melons rather than the varieties [22], while we did not look specific at the impact that all the different cultivars in this study had on the bacterial diversity we did find that netting of the melons did play a role in the bacterial composition although not a major one.…”

“…The authors found that the bacterial diversity of the rhizospheres of the netted, oriental, and bulk soil samples were not different, and that these sample types were found clustered in the PCoA analysis individually by the type of sample rather than any other factor. However, there were unique dominant endophytic genera in netted melon rhizosphere samples that varied between netted and oriental stem samples [22]. Saminathan et al [23] characterized the bacterial communities of mature watermelon cultivars using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing and metatranscriptomics from six varieties of watermelon grown at West Virginia State University over a twoseason period.…”

Bacterial diversity and composition on the rinds of specific melon cultivars and hybrids from across different growing regions in the United States

“…Although we found that bacterial diversity of non-netted melon rind was higher than netted rinds in this study, such differences could be the result of major differences in melon cultivars examined between the studies, the multiple locations within this study, or our examination over several growth seasons. Although our results do agree with the results from Xiao et al, who also found that there was a difference among the communities based on the netting of the melons rather than the varieties [22], while we did not look specific at the impact that all the different cultivars in this study had on the bacterial diversity we did find that netting of the melons did play a role in the bacterial composition although not a major one.…”