Abstract
Drought is a major abiotic stress limiting agricultural productivity. Previous field-level experiments have demonstrated that drought decreases microbiome diversity in the root and rhizosphere. How these changes ultimately affect plant health remains elusive. Toward this end, we combined reductionist, transitional and ecological approaches, applied to the staple cereal crop sorghum to identify key root-associated microbes that robustly affect drought-stressed plant phenotypes. Fifty-three Arabidopsis-associated bacteria were applied to sorghum seeds and their effect on root growth was monitored. Two Arthrobacter strains caused root growth inhibition (RGI) in Arabidopsis and sorghum. In the context of synthetic communities, Variovorax strains were able to protect plants from Arthrobacter-caused RGI. As a transitional system, high-throughput phenotyping was used to test the synthetic communities. During drought stress, plants colonized by Arthrobacter had reduced growth and leaf water content. Plants colonized by both Arthrobacter and Variovorax performed as well or better than control plants. In parallel, we performed a field trial wherein sorghum was evaluated across drought conditions. By incorporating data on soil properties into the microbiome analysis, we accounted for experimental noise with a novel method and were able to observe the negative correlation between the abundance of Arthrobacter and plant growth. Having validated this approach, we cross-referenced datasets from the high-throughput phenotyping and field experiments and report a list of bacteria with high confidence that positively associated with plant growth under drought stress. In conclusion, a three-tiered experimental system successfully spanned the lab-to-field gap and identified beneficial and deleterious bacterial strains for sorghum under drought.
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Claims 7
Claim · model-written summary
Two Arthrobacter strains inhibited root growth in Arabidopsis and sorghum.
- Taxon
- Arabidopsis and sorghum
Arabidopsis
Sorghume0 - Treatment
- Arthrobacter strainse0
- Interactor
- Arthrobacter strainse0other
- Outcome
- root growth inhibitione0
- Direction
- inhibitione0
- Value
- Twoe0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Two Arthrobacter strains caused root growth inhibition (RGI) in Arabidopsis and sorghum.”
Claim · model-written summary
Variovorax strains protected plants from Arthrobacter-induced root growth inhibition in synthetic communities.
- Taxon
- plantsViridiplantaee0
- Treatment
- Variovorax strainse0
- Interactor
- Arthrobacter
Arthrobactere0other - Second interactor
- Variovorax strainse0other
- Outcome
- Arthrobacter-caused RGIe0
- Direction
- protecte0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“In the context of synthetic communities, Variovorax strains were able to protect plants from Arthrobacter-caused RGI.”
Claim · model-written summary
During drought, Arthrobacter-colonized plants had reduced growth and leaf water content.
- Taxon
- plantsViridiplantaee0
- Interactor
- ArthrobacterArthrobactere0other
- Outcome
- growth and leaf water contente0
- Direction
- reducede0
- Qualifier
- During drought stresse0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“During drought stress, plants colonized by Arthrobacter had reduced growth and leaf water content.”
Claim · model-written summary
Plants colonized by both Arthrobacter and Variovorax performed as well as or better than controls.
- Taxon
- PlantsViridiplantaee0
- Treatment
- colonized by both Arthrobacter and Variovoraxe0
- Interactor
- ArthrobacterArthrobactere0other
- Second interactor
- VariovoraxVariovoraxe0other
- Outcome
- performede0
- Direction
- as well or bettere0
- Comparator
- control plantse0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Plants colonized by both Arthrobacter and Variovorax performed as well or better than control plants.”
Claim · model-written summary
Field Arthrobacter abundance correlated negatively with sorghum growth.
- Taxon
- plante0
- Interactor
- ArthrobacterArthrobactere0other
- Outcome
- plant growthe0
- Direction
- negative correlatione0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“negative correlation between the abundance of Arthrobacter and plant growth.”
Claim · model-written summary
Cross-referenced datasets identified bacteria positively associated with drought-stressed plant growth.
Verbatim
e0“report a list of bacteria with high confidence that positively associated with plant growth under drought stress.”
Claim · model-written summary
A three-tiered experimental system connected laboratory and field results to identify beneficial and detrimental sorghum bacteria.
Not reportedComparatorValue
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“a three-tiered experimental system successfully spanned the lab-to-field gap and identified beneficial and deleterious bacterial strains for sorghum under drought.”
The same questions in other papers
Arthrobacter · disease · SorghumResults agree
1 paper in the same direction as this paper
- negative
Arthrobacter · disease · ArabidopsisResults agree
1 paper in the same direction as this paper
- negative
Claims are grouped by organism, treatment and what was measured or targeted. A paper counts as positive when any of its claims in the group is positive.