Rhizosphere microbiome and disease resistance - Project presentation

Summary

Disease resistance is not a mere plant but a system trait involving the complex plant-associated microbial community (Berendsen et al. 2012). As with pathogens, past research often focussed on single, culturable symbiotic microbes. More recently, microbial shifts on the community level have been linked to disease resistance. However, simplistic statements such as “high microbial diversity equals healthier plants” were not confirmed in most recent microbiome analyses (Hartmann et al. 2014, Yu et al. 2012). Plants have the ability to influence the microbial structure in the rhizosphere. Besides soil type, it has been demonstrated that not only different plant species, but also different genotypes within the same species can modify the rhizosphere microbiome (e.g. Berg et al. 2006, Peiffer et al. 2013).
The overall goal of our project is to understand the complex genotype x microbiome interactions and to make use of this knowledge in resistance breeding programmes. For this, we will investigate a phenomenon called soil fatigue of pea, caused by a complex of soil-borne pathogens, and determine rhizosphere microbiome profiles of pea lines with contrasting levels of disease resistance in different agricultural soils using NGS and qPCR. The objective is to identify microbial hubs, diversity indices and key pathogens and beneficials involved in microbe-mediated disease resistance. This information will be linked with root exudate profiles in order to elucidate the plant’s capacity to influence the microbiome composition leading to disease susceptibility or resistance. In the long-term, current and future research activities of our group aim to make use of plant-microbe interactions in plant breeding for an improved expression and stability of important plant traits.