Fungal and Bacterial Microbiome Associated with the Rhizosphere of Native Plants from the Atacama Desert

Abstract

The rhizosphere microbiome is key in survival, development, and stress tolerance in plants. Salinity, drought, and extreme temperatures are frequent events in the Atacama Desert, considered the driest in the world. However, little information of the rhizosphere microbiome and its possible contribution to the adaptation and tolerance of plants that inhabit the desert is available. We used a high-throughput Illumina MiSeq sequencing approach to explore the composition, diversity, and functions of fungal and bacterial communities of the rhizosphere of Baccharis scandens and Solanum chilense native plants from the Atacama Desert. Our results showed that the fungal phyla Ascomycota and Basidiomycota and the bacterial phyla Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria were the dominant taxa in the rhizosphere of both plants. The linear discriminant analysis (LDA) effect size (LefSe) of the rhizosphere communities associated with B. scandens showed the genera Penicillium and Arthrobacter were the preferential taxa, whereas the genera Oidiodendron and Nitrospirae was the preferential taxa in S. chilense. Both plant showed similar diversity, richness, and abundance according to Shannon index, observed OTUs, and evenness. Our results indicate that there are no significant differences (p = 0.1) between the fungal and bacterial communities of both plants, however through LefSe, we find taxa associated with each plant species and the PCoA shows a separation between the samples of each species. This study provides knowledge to relate the assembly of the microbiome to the adaptability to drought stress in desert plants.

Fungal community characteristics and driving factors during the decaying process of Salix psammophila sand barriers in the desert

“…The former mainly includes Sordariomycetes and Eurotiomycetes, while the latter mainly includes Agaricomycetes and Agaricostilbomycetes (Fig 3). These dominant phyla have also been reported in studies, such as a variety of cultivable fungi in bulk soils [38], decaying wood in dry desert areas [34], and rhizosphere microorganisms of plants in extremely arid deserts [39]. It has been reported that ninety percent of the N2O-producing fungi belong to the phylum Ascomycota, especially classes Sordariomycetes, Eurotiomycetes and Saccharomycetes [40].…”

Diversity and composition of soil bacterial community respond to A. palmeri invasion under heterogeneous habitats

“…Sphingomonas_sediminicola was rst isolated from freshwater sediment in 2013 , Sphingomonas spp. have shown a positive effect on plant growth promotion (Fuentes, 2020). It was worth noting that, although the abundance of Gemmatimonadetes showed a downward trend in the invasive plots compared with non-invasive plots of A. palmeri under wasteland habitat, Gemmatimonadetes and Gemmatimonadaceae were still the dominant taxon in this habitat, indicating that those microorganisms played an important role in the invasion of A. palmeri into wasteland.…”

Early Growth Stage Root-Associated Endophytes Isolated From Ulex Europaeus L. (Fabaceae) Colonizing Rural Areas in South-Central Chile

“…The plantlets (n = 20; 3 cm tall) were found in 4 sampling points 2 months after a cleaning and burning treatment of an agricultural soil. The soil samples were collected at a depth of 20 cm for chemical analysis (Fuentes et al, 2020).…”

“…Almost all plant species can interact with endophytic microorganisms as a way to improve tness to several stressed environments (Fuentes et al, 2020;Lata et al, 2018). Endophytes are a group of bacterial and fungal strains that can live asymptomatically inside plant tissues without causing symptoms of disease (Eid et al, 2019;Herrera et al, 2019a).…”