Salinity-induced changes in the rhizosphere microbiome improve salt tolerance of Hibiscus hamabo

Abstract

Aims We aimed to assess whether soil salinity changes the microbial community in the rhizosphere of Hibiscus hamabo, and whether these changes in the microbiome feedback on the growth of H. hamabo. Methods To test effects of salinity on the rhizosphere microbiome, we first did a greenhouse experiment in which H. hamabo was grown in pots with a sand-soil mixture at different salt concentrations (0, 15, 40 and 90 mM NaCl). Then in another two experiments, we tested effects of the rhizosphere microbiomes on performance of H. hamabo plants by sowing and growing them in pots with a peat-sand-vermiculite mixture inoculated with either soil or root fragments collected from the different salinity treatments (0, 40 and 90 mM NaCl) of the first experiment and crossed with a salinity treatment (0, 40 and 90 mM NaCl). Results The bacterial rhizosphere community of H. hamabo was less affected by soil salinities than the fungal community was. Germination and biomass of H. hamabo were highest at a salinity of 40 mM NaCl, and higher in the presence than in the absence of microbial inoculums. Moreover, H. hamabo performed best when the microbial inocula came from the same salinity level, particularly at a salinity of 40 mM NaCl. Conclusions Our study provides evidence that salinityinduced changes in rhizosphere microbial communities tend to promote germination and growth of H. hamabo at the respective salinities.

The genome of Hibiscus hamabo reveals its adaptation to saline and waterlogged habitat

“…As a shelterbelt tree species along the coasts, H. hamabo is a good candidate for studying responses and regulatory mechanisms under stress, which are crucial for using this species in the ecological greening of coastal vegetation systems. Some attempts have been made to understand the mechanisms of stress adaptation in H. hamabo , but the absence of genomic data has hindered systematic investigations to date [ 2 , 15 ]. Here, we report the assembly of the H. hamabo genome at the chromosome level using a combination of PacBio, Hi-C, and Illumina sequencing technology.…”

Hawaiian Island endemic and indigenous plant species have higher mycorrhizal incidence than the global average

“…The sole plant species that did not show any evidence of mycorrhizal fungal colonization from our survey was Hibiscus arnottianus . However, this absence could be an artifact of low replication ( n = 1) because previous studies have found evidence of AM fungal colonization in other species of Hibiscus (Koske and Gemma, 1995; Fallahi et al, 2016; Davison et al, 2018; Yuan et al, 2019).…”

Investigation of bacterial diversity using 16S rRNA sequencing and prediction of its functionalities in Moroccan phosphate mine ecosystem

“…“M6” that confers resistance to fungal pathogen Fusarium graminearum in Finger Millet 4 ), confer fitness advantages to plant host (e.g. Association of microbiome phenotypes with Arabidopsis genes involved in immunity, cell-wall integrity, root and root hair development 5 ) and increase plant tolerance to stress and drought 6 – 8 . In fact, plant Microbiome was identified as a key for the next green revolution 9 , and numerous products and microbiome management strategies were developed in agriculture including (i) microbiome transplants, (ii) microbial inoculants, (iii) microbial and plant extracts, (iv) methods to change environmental conditions and (V) microbiome engineering 10 – 12 …”