Plant-rhizosphere microbe interaction and its response to herbivory: A review

doi:10.17520/biods.2025334

Abstract

Abstract:

Background & Aim: Soil microbes inhabiting plant rhizospheres, known as the “second genome” of plants, play a pivotal role in shaping interspecific interactions, maintaining biodiversity, ecosystem functions, and sustainable agriculture. Owing to the rapid development of molecular techniques such as high-throughput DNA sequencing, plant-rhizosphere microbe interactions have become a hot topic in ecology and have yielded substantial achievements in the past three decades. These achievements profoundly advanced our understandings of alien species invasion and biodiversity maintenance, and provided new avenues to improve agricultural productivity and crop quality. However, current research on plant-rhizosphere microbe interactions, specifically those encompassing multi-species coexistence and spatiotemporal dynamics, remains relatively scarce.
Progress: To improve our ability to predict how plant-rhizosphere microbe interactions respond to insect herbivory, we synthesize current understanding on plant-rhizosphere microbe interaction mechanisms, spatiotemporal variation and the underlying environmental drivers, as well as responses of the mechanisms and their ecological effects of both entities and their interactions to insect herbivory, spanning from the individual to the community level.
Perspectives: We outlined some key limitations in current plant-rhizosphere microbe interaction studies and proposed some future directions, aiming to promote the development of relevant studies.

Key words: plant-microbe interaction, plant-soil feedback, temporal dynamics, spatial heterogeneity, insect herbivory, multi-factor interaction

Jinyue Zhang, Baole Bian, Tairan Tang, Wenhao Nong, Shufeng Zhu, Xinmin Lu. Plant-rhizosphere microbe interaction and its response to herbivory: A review[J]. Biodiv Sci, 2026, 34(4): 25334.

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URL: https://www.biodiversity-science.net/EN/10.17520/biods.2025334

https://www.biodiversity-science.net/EN/Y2026/V34/I4/25334

Figures/Tables 4

Fig. 1 The development course of plant-rhizosphere microbe research technologies from 1880 to 2025. RFLP, Restriction fragment length polymorphism; RAPD, Random amplified polymorphic DNA; SSCP, Single-strand conformation polymorphism; FISH, Fluorescence in situ hybridization; SIP, Stable isotope probing; DGGE/TGGE, Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis/temperature gradient gel electrophoresis.

Fig. 2 Conceptual diagram of plant-soil microbe-herbivore interactions. Upon herbivory of plant foliage by phytophagous insects, the jasmonic acid (JA) signaling pathway and other induced systemic resistance responses are triggered. The plant rhizosphere releases secondary metabolites that selectively recruit specific soil microbe communities. The graphical elements were created using illustration resources from www.figdraw.com.

Fig. 3 Article growth statistics in the field of plant-rhizosphere microbe-herbivorous insect interactions. Research on plant-rhizosphere microbe interactions has developed rapidly in recent years, while studies on tripartite interactions remain limited. Based on a Web of Science search using the keywords “interaction AND plant AND herbivorous”, “interaction AND plant AND rhizosphere microbiome”, and “interaction AND plant AND rhizosphere microbiome AND herbivorous” (document type: Article; language: English; Year: 2000-2023), a total of 2,991 valid articles were retrieved.

Fig. 4 The progress, limitations, outstanding questions and future research directions in the field of plant-rhizosphere microbe interactions. (a) The dashed arrows represent the interaction processes that are yet to be explored, while “×” mark indicates interactions. The parts marked in red represent the scientific questions that urgently need investigation. (b) Integrating long-term time-series field surveys with multi-year, multi-site controlled experiments aiming to elucidate: (1) the spatiotemporal dynamics and driving mechanisms of interactions among insect-plant-rhizosphere microbe interactions, and their feedback effects on plant communities; (2) the chemical and molecular mechanisms underlying plant-rhizosphere microbe interactions, regulated by insect herbivory and interspecific interactions.

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