Patterns in the Microbial Community of Salt-Tolerant Plants and the Functional Genes Associated with Salt Stress Alleviation
Yanfen Zheng, Zongchang Xu, Haodong Liu, Yan Liu, Yanan Zhou, Chen Meng, Siqi Ma, Zhihong Xie, Yiqiang Li, Chengsheng Zhang
Abstract
Salinity is an important but little-studied abiotic stressor affecting plant growth. Although several previous reports have examined salt-tolerant plant microbial communities, we still lack a comprehensive understanding about the functional characteristics and genomic information of this population. The results of this study revealed the root-enriched and -depleted bacterial groups, and found three salt-tolerant plants harbored different bacterial populations. The prediction of three metagenome-assembled genomes confirmed the critical role of root dominant species in helping plants tolerate salt stress. Further analysis indicated that plants enriched microbiome from soil according to their ecological functions but not microbial taxa. This highlights the importance of microbial function in enhancing plant adaptability to saline soil and implies that we should pay more attention to microbial function and not only to taxonomic information. Ultimately, these results provide insight for future agriculture using the various functions of microorganisms on the saline soil.