Plant-microbiome interactions are complex. Understanding how the #plant #holobiont works will provide us the tools to steer plant–microbiome interactions to improve agricultural sustainability and ecosystem resilience. 🌱✨🦠

🦠 However, the abundance of certain individual terpenoids did correlate with specific bacteria, suggesting that plant chemistry may still play a role in the interaction with beneficial microbes.

🧪 Surprisingly, the plant’s chemical profile—specifically its terpenoid composition—had little overall effect on shaping the leaf bacterial community.

Our results show that:

🌱 The plant’s maternal lineage and environment (field vs. greenhouse) had a significant impact on the composition of leaf bacteria.

In our latest study, we investigated how plant maternal effects, leaf chemical composition (chemotype), and environmental conditions influence the bacterial community on leaves, using Tanacetum vulgare (commonly known as tansy) as model. 🌼🌱

lants are not just passive organisms in their environment—they actively shape the microbial communities that live on them. 🌱🦠🌼

🌱 With this study we peeked at microbiome evolution in natural environments. This can have important implications for environmental management, bioremediation, and for understanding microbiome evolution in non-model systems

🦠 While the taxonomic profile of the soil microbiome did not vary between high- and low-selenium soils, we found that the microbiomes thriving in high-selenium soils were enriched of several genes, including genes associated with selenium tolerance.

🧬 We then compared the metagenomes of high- and low-selenium soils, accounting for the different geological profile across sampling sites.

🏔️ We collect samples across the Rockies in sites with both high and low levels of Selenium - which comes with some perks!

🧪 Selenium can be highly toxic for microbes, plants, fish, and mammals. This heavy metal naturally occurs at high concentrations in locations around the globe, and creates a strong temporal selective pressure on the microbes in the soil.

Thanks @symbionticism.bsky.social for leading this paper, and thanks to the Holobiont Biology Network for this amazing collaboration!

The future for Holobiont Biology is bright ⭐

🚀 🎉 In the near future, the field will witness a new era of microbiome engineering and microbiome-based solutions. Imagine the possibility to engineer both plants and their microbiome to improve crop resistance towards pests and pathogens!

🧬 🔬 The next step is to continue digging into the mechanisms regulating the holobiont biology, ecology, and evolution by building new analytical tools and frameworks.

🦠 🌱 It's time to fully embrace the terms holobiont (host+microbiota) and hologenome (all holobiont genomes), unifying "[...] the seen and unseen biological worlds [...]". From now on, we don't look back.