10.5061/DRYAD.DBRV15DXN
Waseem, Raza
0000-0003-0429-8628
Nanjing Agricultural University
Wang, Jianing
Nanjing Agricultural University
Jousset, Alexandre
Utrecht University
Friman, Ville-Petri
University of York
Xinlan, Mei
Nanjing Agricultural University
Shimei, Wang
Nanjing Agricultural University
Wei, Zhong
Nanjing Agricultural University
Shen, Qi-rong
Nanjing Agricultural University
Bacterial community richness shifts the balance between volatile organic
compound-mediated microbe-pathogen and microbe-plant interactions
Dryad
dataset
2020
bacterial diversity
Community richness
Pathogen suppression
Plant growth promotion
plant-microbe interactions
2020-03-26T00:00:00Z
2020-03-26T00:00:00Z
en
1387176 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Even though bacteria are important in determining plant growth and health
via volatile organic compounds (VOCs), it is unclear how these beneficial
effects emerge in multi-species microbiomes. Here we studied this using a
model plant-bacteria system, where we manipulated bacterial community
richness and composition and determined the subsequent effects on VOC
production and VOC-mediated pathogen suppression and plant
growth-promotion. We assembled VOC-producing bacterial communities in
different richness levels ranging from one to twelve strains using three
soil-dwelling bacterial genera (Bacillus, Paenibacillus and Pseudomonas)
and investigated how the composition and richness of bacterial community
affect the production and functioning of VOCs. We found that VOC
production correlated positively with pathogen suppression and plant
growth-promotion and that all bacteria produced a diverse set of VOCs.
However, while pathogen suppression was maximized at intermediate
community richness levels when the relative amount and the number of VOCs
were the highest, plant growth-promotion was maximized at low richness
levels and was only affected by the relative amount of plant
growth-promoting VOCs. The contrasting effects of richness could be
explained by differences in the amount and number of produced VOCs and by
opposing effects of community productivity and evenness on pathogen
suppression and plant-growth promotion along the richness gradient.
Together, these results suggest that the number of interacting bacterial
species and the structure of the rhizosphere microbiome drive the balance
between VOC-mediated microbe-pathogen and microbe-plant interactions
potentially affecting plant disease outcomes in natural and agricultural
ecosystems.