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 8
Claim · model-written summary
Two Arthrobacter strains inhibited root growth in Arabidopsis and sorghum.
- Treatment
- Arthrobacter strainse0
- Interactor
- Arthrobacter
Arthrobactere0other - Outcome
- root growth inhibition (RGI)e0
SorghumNot reportedComparatorDirection
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
Two Arthrobacter strains inhibited Arabidopsis root growth.
- Taxon
- Arabidopsis
Arabidopsise0 - Treatment
- Arthrobacter strainse0
- Interactor
- ArthrobacterArthrobactere0other
- Outcome
- root growth inhibition (RGI)e0
Not reportedComparatorDirection
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 protected plants from Arthrobacter-induced root growth inhibition in synthetic communities.
- Treatment
- Variovorax strainse0
- Interactor
- ArthrobacterArthrobactere0other
- Second interactor
- VariovoraxVariovoraxe0symbiont
- Outcome
- Arthrobacter-caused RGIe0
Not reportedComparatorDirection
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.”
e1“staple cereal crop sorghum”
Claim · model-written summary
Under drought, Arthrobacter-colonized plants had reduced growth.
- Interactor
- ArthrobacterArthrobactere0other
- Outcome
- growthe0
- 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.”
e1“staple cereal crop sorghum to identify”
Claim · model-written summary
Under drought, Arthrobacter-colonized plants had reduced leaf water content.
- Interactor
- ArthrobacterArthrobactere0other
- Outcome
- 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.”
e1“staple cereal crop sorghum to identify”
Claim · model-written summary
Under drought, dual Arthrobacter and Variovorax colonization performed at least as well as controls.
- Treatment
- colonized by both Arthrobacter and Variovoraxe0
- Interactor
- ArthrobacterArthrobactere0other
- Second interactor
- VariovoraxVariovoraxe0symbiont
- Outcome
- performed as well or bettere0
- 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.”
e1“staple cereal crop sorghum to identify”
Claim · model-written summary
Field Arthrobacter abundance was negatively correlated with sorghum growth.
- Interactor
- ArthrobacterArthrobactere0other
- Outcome
- plant growthe0
- Direction
- negativee0
- Setting
- field triale1
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”
e1“field trial wherein sorghum was evaluated across drought conditions”
Claim · model-written summary
Cross-referenced experiments identified bacteria positively associated with plant growth under drought.
- Outcome
- plant growth under drought stresse0
Not reportedComparatorValue
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“report a list of bacteria with high confidence that positively associated with plant growth under drought stress”
e1“staple cereal crop sorghum”
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.