Field level comparison of rhizosphere microbiome characteristics between wheat cultivars Jimai22 and Xiaoyan22

Abstract

AbstractThe rhizosphere microbiome can regulate various plant biological activities; however, the composition of the rhizosphere microbiome is easily affected by the growing environment and plant genotype. To further explore the differences and the interaction mechanisms between the rhizosphere microbiome of different wheat cultivars planted in northern China, we systematically compared the rhizosphere microbiome of major wheat cultivars Jimai22 and Xiaoyan22 planted in the field in Jinan and Qingdao, Shandong Province. The rhizosphere microbiome data were obtained from Jimai22 and Xiaoyan22 at the three‐leaf stage by 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and were compared based on diversity analysis, principal coordinates’ analysis, machine learning methods such as random forest, and network analysis. The results showed that the plant growing environment and genotype significantly affected the community structure of the wheat rhizosphere microbiome. Operational taxonomic units belonged to Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, Acidobacteria, and Proteobacteria were differentially enriched between the two wheat genotypes. Moreover, random forest model could accurately (accuracy rate 96.4%) predict wheat genotype across locations based on differences in rhizosphere microbiome of Jimai22 and Xiaoyan22. The findings of this study provide supporting data and a theoretical basis for in‐depth understanding of the composition of the rhizosphere microbiome of wheat planted in northern China, which can be applied to improve wheat breeding from the perspective of root microbe–plant interaction.