Identifying the effects of plant neighbor on switchgrass root exudates and microbial community associations.
EMSL Project ID
50415
Abstract
Plants use complex chemical cocktails, root exudates, to communicate with nearby plants and modify associating microbial communities. By selecting for certain microbes, plants can increase their nutrient availability and, in turn, alter their competitive interactions with neighboring plants. This research aims to understand how neighboring plants influence one another’s root exudation and, therefore, selection of their rhizosphere microbiome. This is particularly relevant to agricultural settings, in which humans directly manipulate plants’ neighbors with different planting contexts (e.g. monocultures, diverse polycultures or inter-cropped species) and, therefore, likely alter the plants’ microbial interactions. We conducted a greenhouse experiment in which switchgrass, a potential cellulosic bioenergy crop, was planted near different plant neighbors. Rhizosphere microbial community DNA and focal switchgrass root exudates were collected to assess the importance of neighbor-induced changes on switchgrass’s microbial associations. We found that switchgrass neighbored by different species has distinct microbial communities, and suspect that neighbor-induced shifts in switchgrass root exudates may explain these microbial changes. We propose to use EMSL’s metabolomics center to analyze root exudate composition as the potential mechanism explaining neighbor effects on microbial communities. This research examines will provide insight to how planting contexts can be manipulated to better harness beneficial plant-microbial interactions, with potential implications for more sustainable growth of cellulosic bioenergy.
Project Details
Project type
Limited Scope
Start Date
2018-07-02
End Date
2018-09-01
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator
Team Members