Effect of agricultural management and climate conditions on soil and plant microbiomes under contemporary water stress

• Applicant: Hamed Azarbad, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Organismic Interactions, Chemical Ecology and Microbiomes of Plant Systems ; Evolution and Systematics of Plants and Fungi ; Microbial Ecology and Applied Microbiology ; Ecology of Land Use
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 523864000

Global climate changes and agricultural management practices can both have major impacts on microbes. However, the effects of climate change-related stressors (e.g., drought) and management practices on microbes have often been studied separately, and it remains to be answered how the combination of such factors impacts soil and plant-associated microbiome and, subsequently, plant growth. In the proposed project, first, I will test how the history of soil microbial exposure to different agricultural managements (conventional vs. organic) and climate conditions (future vs. ambient) influences the morphological and physiological traits of wheat genotypes and the metagenomic gene content of their rhizosphere under contemporary water stress. I will further examine how seed-associated bacteria and fungi can be selected by different wheat genotypes and how contemporary and historical environmental conditions influence microbial selections. In the final step, I will evaluate whether changes due to experimental factors in plant seeds and their microbiome are passed on to the following generation of plants and affect traits related to plant growth as well as plant microbiomes. Together, these efforts will provide a critical step in understanding the key microbes or genes which can modify the plant’s ability to resist drought. In the longer term, such knowledge might facilitate the development of microbiome-based strategies to enhance agricultural productivity under a rapidly changing climate.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants