Original information
Original link:
https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.19249
Outline of Research
In biodiversity conservation planning, it is very important to effectively use limited resources to achieve maximum ecological benefits. In a study published in the journal New Phytologist by Daniel Revillini and other researchers from the University of Miami, researchers evaluated the effects of allelopathic effects on the structure and function of soil microbial communities, and explored how these microbial changes affect plant germination and productivity, using soil and 13 species of perennial herbaceous plants in the Florida shrub ecosystem as research subjects. This study provides a new perspective for biodiversity conservation planning, using soil microbial communities to regulate allelopathy, thereby optimizing the structure and function of plant communities and improving biodiversity in ecosystems.
Background:
Allelopathy is an ecological process that refers to the ecological process in which plants affect the growth of other plants by releasing allelochemicals and plays an important role in the construction of plant communities. Although allelopathic effects are ubiquitous and have significant effects on plant performance, their direct impact on soil microbial communities and how these microbial changes affect plant performance are not well understood, and understanding these interactions is important for developing effective biodiversity conservation strategies.
Key results
1. Changes in the structure of microbial communities
In this study, the researchers identified bacterial and fungal taxa that changed significantly after the addition of allelochemicals and found that the addition of allelochemicals significantly changed the composition and function of the soil microbial community, in particular increased the abundance of potentially beneficial bacteria and decreased the abundance of potentially pathogenic fungi (Figure 1), suggesting that allelopathic effects can play a role by selectively influencing the composition of the microbial community.
Figure 1: Core microbial taxa with and without hydroxycinnamic acid (HCA) addition. Core bacteria (top) and core fungi (bottom) are colored and sorted by occurrence frequency and relative abundance detection thresholds. Stars, circles, and arrows indicate taxa that have been added, removed, and increased in frequency to the core microbial community after allelochemicals have been treated.
2. Response of functional genes
Through the prediction of bacterial functional genes, it was found that allelochemical-induced microbial community changes were accompanied by significant responses to functional genes, especially genes associated with nitrogen fixation, ammonia oxidation, nitrite reduction, and phosphate transport (Figure 3), which may affect nutrient cycling in soil and nutrient access in plants.
Figure 3: Predictive bacterial functional genes that respond significantly to the addition of allelochemicals The figure shows an increase in nifQ, a gene associated with nitrogen fixation, and a decrease in amoA, nir, phn, and ugp, which are associated with ammonia oxidation, nitrite reduction, phosphate reduction, and phosphate transport.
3. Regulation of plant performance
Allelochemicals reduce total plant biomass, but this effect is mitigated by the presence of soil microbial communities (Figure 4), suggesting that microbial communities may modulate plant responses to allelopathic effects by altering the behavior of allelochemicals in soil or by directly interacting with plants.
Figure 4: Total biomass response of plants to allelochemicals addition, coloring by microbial community treatment. (a) Indicates the mean of the total biomass response of all plant species, which is regulated by the microbial community. (b) It was shown that the single plant species Balduina angustifolia responded to the addition of allelochemicals in the presence of microbial communities, and that allelochemicals had a less inhibitory effect on total biomass in the presence of microbial communities.
4. Correlation between microbial taxa and plant performance
There are significant positive and negative correlations between specific microbial taxa and functional genes and plant performance indicators (e.g., germination rate, total biomass, and root:aboveground biomass ratio), and certain microbial taxa may play a key role in plant adaptation to allelopathic effects.
Figure 5: Significant (P < 0.05) linear mixed effects model (LMM) estimates between the three plant performance responses and microbial taxa that responded significantly to allelochemical addition and predicted bacterial function. The dots represent the mean LMM parameter estimates, and the lines represent the standard errors.
5. Presents a potential framework
This study explains the relationship between the frequency of ecological stress and the response to plant-microbial interaction (PMI) and proposes the hypothesis that the frequency of ecological stress is inversely correlated with the intensity of microbial-mediated plant performance responses (Fig. 5), which facilitates our understanding of the intensity of plant-microbial interactions under environmental stress, which is of great significance for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management.
conclusion
This study revealed the mechanism by which allelochemicals affect plant performance by adjusting the structure and function of soil microbial communities. The study found that there was a significant correlation between specific microbial groups and plant performance, suggesting that soil microbial communities played an important role in moderating the negative effects of allelopathic effects. In addition, this study proposes an innovative hypothesis that the frequency of ecological stress may have an impact on the mediating effect of microbial communities. Especially in the context of persistent allelopathic stress, the microbial community may be more effective in promoting a neutral or even positive response to plant performance. These breakthrough findings are of far-reaching significance for the formulation and implementation of biodiversity conservation strategies, and provide valuable scientific basis for further ecological research and biodiversity conservation practices.
At the forefront of plant science, focusing on the frontier progress of plant science, the release of information, recruitment information and method software sharing. For submission and recruitment, please reply to "contribution" in the background, all of which are free of charge; for business cooperation, please contact WeChat ID: zwkxqy;