Unearthing soil-plant-microbiota crosstalk: Looking back to move forward

Abstract

The soil is vital for life on Earth and its biodiversity. However, being a non-renewable and threatened resource, preserving soil quality is crucial to maintain a range of ecosystem services critical to ecological balances, food production and human health. In an agricultural context, soil quality is often perceived as the ability to support field production, and thus soil quality and fertility are strictly interconnected. The concept of, as well as the ways to assess, soil fertility has undergone big changes over the years. Crop performance has been historically used as an indicator for soil quality and fertility. Then, analysis of a range of physico-chemical parameters has been used to routinely assess soil quality. Today it is becoming evident that soil quality must be evaluated by combining parameters that refer both to the physico-chemical and the biological levels. However, it can be challenging to find adequate indexes for evaluating soil quality that are both predictive and easy to measure in situ. An ideal soil quality assessment method should be flexible, sensitive enough to detect changes in soil functions, management and climate, and should allow comparability among sites. In this review, we discuss the current status of soil quality indicators and existing databases of harmonized, open-access topsoil data. We also explore the connections between soil biotic and abiotic features and crop performance in an agricultural context. Finally, based on current knowledge and technical advancements, we argue that the use of plant health traits represents a powerful way to assess soil physico-chemical and biological properties. These plant health parameters can serve as proxies for different soil features that characterize soil quality both at the physico-chemical and at the microbiological level, including soil quality, fertility and composition of soil microbial communities.

Soil, rhizosphere, and root microbiome in kiwifruit vine decline, an emerging multifactorial disease

“…The physicochemical properties of soils were integrated into the network analysis to assess their role in changing the plant’s ability to withstand abiotic stress while influencing the plant-associated microbiome ( Giovannetti et al, 2023 ). Similar to grapevine decline, where physicochemical parameters of soils alone could not explain the presence of decline in affected vineyards compared to asymptomatic ones ( Darriaut et al, 2021 ), KVDS-affected and healthy orchards did not cluster differently based on soil physicochemical properties measured in this study.…”

More than a meat- or synthetic nitrogen fertiliser-substitute: a review of legume phytochemicals as drivers of ‘One Health’ via their influence on the functional diversity of soil- and gut-microbes

“…A recent study based on ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem-quadrupole mass spectrometry has reported an increased plant growth and number of nodules in L. japonicus , due to the action of three phenolic acids (p-coumaric, caffeic, and ferulic) enhancing nod genes expression, thus being considered a novel type of nod inducers ( Shimamura et al., 2022 ). The wide range of phenolic compound classes reflects their multifaceted impact on the soil microbial community, which is important to prevent or mitigate dysbiosis in soil microbiomes that would then affect plant yield and overall nutritional quality ( Giovannetti et al., 2023 ). Given the close link between plant nutrition and human health ( Hoffmann et al., 2022 ), this foreshadows the importance of legume phytochemicals with microbe-modulating properties to support the One Health approach ( Figure 2 ).…”

Plant–microorganism–soil interaction under long-term low-dose ionizing radiation

“…Especially in terrestrial ecosystems, there is a systematic correlation among plants, microorganisms, and soil. Aboveground vegetation, plant roots, soil physicochemical properties, and soil microorganisms are interconnected through nutrient cycle, energy flow, etc., which affect the structure and function of the whole terrestrial ecosystem ( Castle et al, 2016 ; Song and Liu, 2018 ; Siddhartha and Karolina, 2022 ; Giovannetti et al, 2023 ; Song, 2023 ). Therefore, plant–microorganism–soil interaction is the main driving factor of carbon and nitrogen cycling ( Delgado-Baquerizo et al, 2016 ).…”