Application prospects of synthetic bacterial communities with emergent functions in crop breeding
In agroecosystems,microorganisms have rich,diverse,and complex ecological functions,so-called emergent properties,which refer to novel characteristics that emerge in complicated systems as their complexity increases.Interestingly,although emergent functions originate from the joint action of multiple species,the number of species required for triggering such a phenomenon is not so large,typically less than ten.This not only provides the possibility of using synthetic bacterial communities(SynComs)to explore the generation of emergent functions,but also makes it possible to use SynComs to modify the symbiotic microbiota of plant hosts.Seed microbiome,which consists of the earliest microbial residents of a plant,has much simpler community structures compared with either rhizosphere or phyllosphere microbiome.Considering the priority effect,however,it is believed that the seed microbiome plays an important role in the evolution and assembly of plant symbiotic microbial communities,which is currently overlooked.Under particular conditions,even if the members of the seed microbiome have become rare species or disappeared in the later stage,they may still affect the development of plant symbiotic microbiome with legacy effect.Notably,limited by the dry and oligotrophic microhabitat conditions,biofilms should be the main morphology for the microbes existing on the surface of and inside seeds.Applying functional synthetic microbial communities as the seed coatings or biofilms may be the most effective intervention strategy for plant microbiome manipulations,as it targets the most critical period of the early development of plant-associated microbiota.In the context of smart agriculture,the integration of seed chip technologies and drone intelligent platforms could facilitate the high-throughput field characterization and application of SynComs,enabling the discovery of functional SynComs with specific emergent properties that work with plant seeds.Therefore,the application of synthetic bacterial biofilms,or coatings,provides a feasible approach,and is expected to bring breakthrough for the development of microbe-crop breeding technology.
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