TY - JOUR
T1 - Acidification suppresses the natural capacity of soil microbiome to fight pathogenic Fusarium infections
AU - Li, Xiaogang
AU - Chen, Dele
AU - Carrión, Víctor J.
AU - Revillini, Daniel
AU - Yin, Shan
AU - Dong, Yuanhua
AU - Zhang, Taolin
AU - Wang, Xingxiang
AU - Delgado-Baquerizo, Manuel
N1 - data publishing: not nioo
PY - 2023/8/22
Y1 - 2023/8/22
N2 - Soil-borne pathogens pose a major threat to food production worldwide, particularly under global change and with growing populations. Yet, we still know very little about how the soil microbiome regulates the abundance of soil pathogens and their impact on plant health. Here we combined field surveys with experiments to investigate the relationships of soil properties and the structure and function of the soil microbiome with contrasting plant health outcomes. We find that soil acidification largely impacts bacterial communities and reduces the capacity of soils to combat fungal pathogens. In vitro assays with microbiomes from acidified soils further highlight a declined ability to suppress Fusarium, a globally important plant pathogen. Similarly, when we inoculate healthy plants with an acidified soil microbiome, we show a greatly reduced capacity to prevent pathogen invasion. Finally, metagenome sequencing of the soil microbiome and untargeted metabolomics reveals a down regulation of genes associated with the synthesis of sulfur compounds and reduction of key traits related to sulfur metabolism in acidic soils. Our findings suggest that changes in the soil microbiome and disruption of specific microbial processes induced by soil acidification can play a critical role for plant health.
AB - Soil-borne pathogens pose a major threat to food production worldwide, particularly under global change and with growing populations. Yet, we still know very little about how the soil microbiome regulates the abundance of soil pathogens and their impact on plant health. Here we combined field surveys with experiments to investigate the relationships of soil properties and the structure and function of the soil microbiome with contrasting plant health outcomes. We find that soil acidification largely impacts bacterial communities and reduces the capacity of soils to combat fungal pathogens. In vitro assays with microbiomes from acidified soils further highlight a declined ability to suppress Fusarium, a globally important plant pathogen. Similarly, when we inoculate healthy plants with an acidified soil microbiome, we show a greatly reduced capacity to prevent pathogen invasion. Finally, metagenome sequencing of the soil microbiome and untargeted metabolomics reveals a down regulation of genes associated with the synthesis of sulfur compounds and reduction of key traits related to sulfur metabolism in acidic soils. Our findings suggest that changes in the soil microbiome and disruption of specific microbial processes induced by soil acidification can play a critical role for plant health.
U2 - 10.1038/s41467-023-40810-z
DO - 10.1038/s41467-023-40810-z
M3 - Article
C2 - 37607924
AN - SCOPUS:85168675214
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 14
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 5090
ER -