Deciphering the anthosphere and endosphere microbiome of wild Rosaceae plants for cold-adapted plant growth promoting bacteria

• Main Authors: Marian Malek, Milanese Irma, Antonielli Livio, Pertot Ilaria, Perazzolli Michele
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: Plant Microbiome; Alpine Region; Cold Stress; Rosaceae Plants; Psychrotolerant Bacteria; Plant Growth Promotion; Dryas octopetala
• Online Access: https://zenodo.org/record/6849778; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6849778

Cold stress is one of the main limiting factors for fruit crop production worldwide. Plants and their associated microbial communities have developed complex adaptation strategies against different abiotic stresses, cold stress included. Plants growing in cold regions, such as alpine and sub-alpine regions, are hypothesized to survive cold stress thanks to symbiosis with endophytic microorganisms. However, the structure and function of endophytic microbial communities associated with such plants are poorly understood. Our aim is to taxonomically and functionally characterize the endophytic bacterial communities associated with three wild cold-adapted Rosaceae plants (i.e. Geum montanum, Alchemilla sp., and Dryas octopetala) from alpine region. Plant samples were collected from seven different sites in Italy from two expositions (North and South). The bacterial community structure associated with the flowers, leaves, and roots were characterized using 16S rRNA gene (V5–V7 region) amplicon sequencing to identify potential candidate taxa for cold tolerance. In addition, targeted isolation methods were used to recover culturable psychrotolerant bacterial taxa through a combination of a low nutrient medium (Reasoner's 2A agar), long incubation time (up to 4 weeks) and low temperature (at 4°C). Data generated through this work increase our understanding of the structure and function of the microbiome of wild Rosaceae plants, which may allow the design of efficient bacterial inoculants for enhancing cold stress tolerance in agronomically relevant fruit crops. The project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under the Marie Skłodowska Curie grant agreement number 101021787 (project FreezingBioprotector).