Exploring and Optimizing Agricultural Root, Rhizosphere and Soil Microbiomes

Changes in the root, rhizosphere and soil microbial communities may play important roles in drought tolerance, nitrogen use efficiency and iron deficiency chlorosis (IDC). Advances in sequencing technology now provides an unparalleled opportunity to fully characterize the changes in the microbial communities found in and around roots in agricultural fields. To gain a full picture of the changes in crop plant microbiomes we have used culture independent techniques with corn, sorghum, soybean and native grasses grown under water deficit, nitrogen limitation and on alkaline soils. Specific bacterial community changes are measured due to the abiotic stresses and in many cases, these changes also vary between different genotypes. Using these data sets we are able to identify differentially abundance microbial taxa. These descriptive studies are then being used to develop specific hypotheses regarding the role of bacteria in these systems under abiotic stress. To test these hypotheses we have created a large microbe collection. If microbes are found to be differentially abundant and are in the culture collection we use them to test hypotheses regarding drought tolerance, increased nitrogen use efficiency and IDC tolerance. Several different studies in using culture independent methods will be discussed along with the results of greenhouse experiments that are designed to test the effects of different microbes under abiotic stress conditions.