Biodiv Sci ›› 2023, Vol. 31 ›› Issue (4): 22667.  DOI: 10.17520/biods.2022667

• Reviews • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Research progress on ecological functions and community assembly of plant microbiomes

Qing Zeng1,2, Chao Xiong1,3, Mei Yin4, Anhui Ge1,5, Lili Han1, Limei Zhang1,2,*()   

  1. 1. State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085
    2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049
    3. College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871
    4. Agricultural Environment and Resource Institute, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Kunming 650205
    5. Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032
  • Received:2022-12-02 Accepted:2023-01-28 Online:2023-04-20 Published:2023-04-20
  • Contact: *E-mail: zhanglm@rcees.ac.cn

Abstract:

Background & Aim: Plants harbor large and highly diverse microbial communities in every compartment niche, including the surfaces and interiors of all plant organs. These microorganisms, namely plant microbiomes, have co-evolved with host plant for over hundreds of millions of years and play important roles in plant nutrient uptake, growth promotion, disease resistance and adaptation to environmental stresses as “holobionts” of the host plant. The rapid development of multi-omics approaches in recent decades has greatly promoted the research on diversity, composition, functions and driver factors of plant microbiomes and plant-microbiome interaction mechanisms. However, the current understanding and utilization of the plant microbiome remain inadequate in comparison to soil microbiome.

Progresses: This review summarized the recent progresses on the diversity, composition, functions and mechanisms of plant microbiomes in regulating plant growth and development, promoting nutrient uptake, improving disease resistance and adaption to environmental stresses. We further reviewed the driving factors of plant microbiome community assembly, from the respective of host selection, environmental factors and microbial interactions. The complex plant-microbe interactions that shape plant microbiome community and regulate their beneficial functions for plants were highlighted.

Perspectives: We prospect that more research efforts will be put towards core microbiome mining, synthetic community construction and application, precise screening of plant genetic loci affecting beneficial microbe colonization, and unraveling plant-microbiome interaction mechanisms at the plant-microbial community level. Overall, a comprehensive understanding of plant microbial community assembly and ecological functions and the mechanisms is vital for future management and manipulation of plant microbiomes for ecosystem health and agricultural sustainability.

Key words: epiphytes, endophytes, host selection, growth promotion, disease suppression, plant-microbiome interaction