Pedosphere 34(5): 892--904, 2024
ISSN 1002-0160/CN 32-1315/P
©2024 Soil Science Society of China
Published by Elsevier B.V. and Science Press
Structure, variation and assembly processes of bacterial communities in different root-associated niches of tomato under periodic drought and nitrogen addition
Dan HE1,2, Ruifeng GAO2,3, Honghong DONG2, Xiaodi LIU2, Lijuan REN4, Qinglong WU1, Qing YAO5, Honghui ZHU2
1 Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou), Guangzhou 511458 (China)
2 Key Laboratory of Agricultural Microbiomics and Precision Application (MARA), State Key Laboratory of Applied Microbiology Southern China, Institute of Microbiology, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510070 (China)
3 College of Plant Protection, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642 (China)
4 Department of Ecology, Institute of Hydrobiology, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632 (China)
5 College of Horticulture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642 (China)
Corresponding Author:Dan HE
ABSTRACT
      Root-associated bacteria play a vital role in the growth and adaptation of host plants to drought stress. These bacteria can be classified as rhizoplane and rhizosphere bacteria based on their distance from the root surface. Tomato plants are often exposed to periodic drought and nitrogen (N) addition throughout their life cycle, but the impacts of these factors on the plant and root-associated bacteria are not well understood. To gain insight into this relationship, we conducted an experiment to monitor the effects of periodic drought and N addition on rhizoplane and rhizosphere bacteria of tomato plants. Drought and N addition had interactive effects on plant and soil properties, which varied with the timing of drought. There were clear divergences in community traits such as alpha diversity, beta diversity, and network topological features between the two types of bacteria. The rhizoplane bacteria showed lower alpha diversity but higher beta diversity and were more sensitive to drought and N addition than the rhizosphere bacteria. Nitrogen addition could downsize the effects of drought on rhizoplane bacterial community compositions. The higher proximity to the root might induce a community to develop more cooperation between different members to cope with plant metabolites, as revealed by the more connected and modularized community network of the rhizoplane bacteria. Drought at the seedling stage had great legacy effects on plant and soil properties. It may enhance selection, cause the dominance of deterministic processes in the assembly of rhizoplane bacteria, and reduce bacterial community network complexity. In conclusion, N addition could interact with drought in affecting tomato plants and their root-associated bacteria, depending on the timing of drought and the fineness of root niches. The higher sensitivity of rhizoplane bacteria to drought and N addition calls for more research due to their higher proximity and importance to plants in future environmental changes.
Key Words:  alpha diversity,beta diversity,community composition,co-occurrence network,drought stress,node-level network feature,rhizoplane bacteria,rhizosphere bacteria
Citation: He D, Gao R F, Dong H H, Liu X D, Ren L J, Wu Q L, Yao Q, Zhu H H. 2024. Structure, variation and assembly processes of bacterial communities in different root-associated niches of tomato under periodic drought and nitrogen addition. Pedosphere. 34(5): 892-904.
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