Plant-Microbe Interaction: Current Status and Future Directions
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Plant Sciences".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 June 2024 | Viewed by 285
Special Issue Editor
Interests: arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis; aquaporins; drought stress; plant-growth-promoting rhizo-bacteria; salt stress; root hydraulics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
In nature, plants continuously interact with numerous microbial species throughout all stages of their life cycle, and cohabit with microbes that colonize all accessible plant tissues, including bacteria, fungi, protists, nematodes, and viruses; together, these represent the microbiota. Global climate change has brought new and complicated challenges for sustainable agriculture and a need to maintain food production for an ever-increasing human population. To combat these challenges, the use of beneficial micro-organisms has been proposed; these can help plants to control soil-borne diseases, maintain soil structure, and provide nutrients and natural resources to plants.
Beneficial plant–microbe interactions include plant growth promotion, protection against biotic and abiotic stresses through a priming of the plant immune system or an initiation of plant defence pathways, adaptation to a variable environment, nutrient uptake, and conversion of unavailable nutrients into plant-accessible forms. Nitrogen-fixing bacteria are universally potent bioinoculants used to promote plant growth. Phosphate-solubilizing bacteria have been reported to increase P uptake by converting insoluble to soluble forms. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi form symbiotic associations with most terrestrial plants and are mainly responsible for the uptake of phosphorus, other nutrients, and water. Azospirillum and Azotobacter are two important bacteria that frequently increase yields. Cyanobacteria also contribute significantly to the nitrogen economy of sustainable agriculture.
The interactions between plants and microbes may develop into distinguishing relationships depending on the impact on plant health, i.e., mutualistic, neutral, or harmful. These plant–microbe interactions are crucial in sustainable agriculture, both for food production and for environmental health. Understanding the intimate mechanisms of plant–microbe interactions and their engineering for suitable applications in sustainable agriculture is imperative to meet worldwide food demands in the future.
Future studies need to address the following important questions: Which plant genes allow crops to shape the rhizosphere microbiota? What are the effects of microbes on the host plant? How do plants and microbes communicate with each other? Moreover, how do these plant–microbe interactions evolve under multiple climate change scenarios?
Dr. Juan Manuel Ruiz Lozano
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- beneficial micro-organism
- climate change
- crop productivity
- environmental stress
- food production
- plant growth
- stress mitigation
- yield
