Abstract
ABSTRACT Climate change is altering both soil microbial communities and the ecological context of plant–microbe interactions. Heat, drought, and their legacies can alter soil microbiomes and potential plant symbionts, but the direct consequences of these microbial changes on plant performance and plant investment in symbiosis remain underexplored. Predicting how soil microbes modulate plant resilience to heat and drought is critical to mitigating the negative effects of climate change on ecosystems and agriculture. In this proof of concept study, we conducted growth chamber experiments to isolate the microbially mediated indirect effects of heat and drought on plant performance and symbiosis. In the first experiment, focused on drought, we found that drought and drought‐treated microbes, along with their interaction, significantly decreased the biomass of Medicago lupulina plants compared to well‐watered microbiomes and conditions. In a second experiment, we then tested how the addition of a well‐known microbial mutualist, Sinorhizobium meliloti , affected heat‐ and drought‐treated microbiomes' impact on M. lupulina . We found that drought‐adapted microbiomes negatively impacted legume performance by increasing mortality and reducing branch number, but that adding rhizobia erased differences in plant responses to climate‐treated soils. In contrast, heat‐adapted microbiomes did not differ significantly from control microbiomes in their effects on a legume. Our results suggest microbial legacy effects, mutualist partners, and their interactions are important in mediating plant responses to drought, with some mutualists equalizing plant responses across microbial legacies.
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Claims 7
Claim · model-written summary
Drought conditions decreased M. lupulina biomass compared with well-watered conditions.
- Taxon
- Medicago lupulina
Medicago lupulinae0 - Treatment
- droughte0
- Outcome
- biomasse0
- Direction
- decreasede0
- Comparator
- well‐watered microbiomes and conditionse0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“drought and drought‐treated microbes, along with their interaction, significantly decreased the biomass of Medicago lupulina plants compared to well‐watered microbiomes and conditions”
Claim · model-written summary
Drought-treated microbes decreased M. lupulina biomass compared with well-watered microbiomes.
- Taxon
- Medicago lupulinaMedicago lupulinae0
- Treatment
- drought‐treated microbese0
- Interactor
- microbese0symbiont
- Outcome
- biomasse0
- Direction
- decreasede0
- Comparator
- well‐watered microbiomes and conditionse0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“drought and drought‐treated microbes, along with their interaction, significantly decreased the biomass of Medicago lupulina plants compared to well‐watered microbiomes and conditions”
Claim · model-written summary
The drought-by-microbe interaction decreased M. lupulina biomass.
- Taxon
- Medicago lupulinaMedicago lupulinae0
- Treatment
- their interactione0
- Outcome
- biomasse0
- Direction
- decreasede0
- Comparator
- well‐watered microbiomes and conditionse0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“drought and drought‐treated microbes, along with their interaction, significantly decreased the biomass of Medicago lupulina plants compared to well‐watered microbiomes and conditions”
Claim · model-written summary
Drought-adapted microbiomes increased legume mortality.
- Taxon
- legumee0
- Treatment
- drought‐adapted microbiomese0
- Interactor
- microbiomese0symbiont
- Outcome
- mortalitye0
- Direction
- increasinge0
Not reportedComparator
Verbatim
e0“drought‐adapted microbiomes negatively impacted legume performance by increasing mortality and reducing branch number”
Claim · model-written summary
Drought-adapted microbiomes reduced legume branch number.
- Taxon
- legumee0
- Treatment
- drought‐adapted microbiomese0
- Interactor
- microbiomese0symbiont
- Outcome
- branch numbere0
- Direction
- reducinge0
Not reportedComparator
Verbatim
e0“drought‐adapted microbiomes negatively impacted legume performance by increasing mortality and reducing branch number”
Claim · model-written summary
Adding rhizobia erased differences in plant responses across climate-treated soils.
- Taxon
- M. lupulinaMedicago lupulinae1
- Treatment
- adding rhizobiae0
- Interactor
- rhizobiae0symbiont
- Outcome
- differences in plant responsese0
- Direction
- erasede0
- Comparator
- climate‐treated soilse0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“adding rhizobia erased differences in plant responses to climate‐treated soils”
e1“M. lupulina”
Claim · model-written summary
Heat-adapted microbiomes did not significantly differ from controls in their effects on the legume.
Verbatim
e0“heat‐adapted microbiomes did not differ significantly from control microbiomes in their effects on a legume”
The same questions in other papers
inoculation · growth · Medicago lupulinaPositive and negative results
2 in the opposite direction
- positive
- positive
drought · growth · Medicago lupulinaPositive and negative results
1 paper in the same direction as this paper · 1 in the opposite direction
- positive
- 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.