Insights into Endophytic Bacterial Diversity of Rice Grown Across the Different Agro-ecological Regions of West Bengal, India

Abstract

Endophytes have recently garnered importance worldwide and multiple studies are being conducted to understand their important role and mechanism of interaction inside plants. But before we indulge in their functions it is necessary to dig into the microbiome. This will help to get a complete picture of the microbes intrinsic to their host and understand changes in community composition with respect to their habitats. To fulfil this requirement in our study we have attempted to dissect the endophytic diversity in roots of rice plant grown across the various agro-ecological zones of West Bengal by undergoing amplicon analysis of their 16S rRNA gene. We found that the agro-ecological zones can be divided into two groups: nutrient dense (GAZ, NHZ and TTAZ) and nutrient low groups (CSZ, RLZ and VAZ). Few genera (Aeromonas, Sulfurospirillum, Uliginosibacterium, etc.) are present in samples cultivated in all the zones representing the core microbiome of rice in West Bengal while some other genera like Lactococcus, Dickeya, Azonexus, Pectobacterium, etc. are unique to specific zone. It can be concluded that understanding which particular endophytes cohabit with the internal plant environment can play an important role in endophyte-based stress management strategy.