Recent Posts

Review: Challenges to improving plant growth through introduced microbes

Plants are closely associated with large numbers of microbes that live in, on, and around them; these are collectively called the plant microbiota. Microbes can be pathogenic, neutral, or beneficial. Beneficial microbes might enhance nutrient uptake by the plant or suppress pathogenic microbes. There…

Shifting microbial communities can enhance tree tolerance to changing climates

Like all of Earth’s lifeforms, plants are already experiencing hardships due to the changing climate, and these stresses will get more extreme. Much effort has gone into breeding crops for climate resilience, less on trees which are both more diverse and less genetically tractable. Here, Allsup et…

A highly conserved core bacterial microbiota with nitrogen-fixation capacity inhabits the xylem sap in maize plants (Nature Comms)

Plants and microorganisms build complex associations that are essential for plant homeostasis. Studies have suggested that there is a ‘core microbiota’ that is particular to specific crops and that is inherited through generations. Targeted manipulation of crop microbiomes with the inoculation of…

Seed microbiota revealed by a large-scale meta-analysis including 50 plant species (New Phytol)

The study of seed microbiota is rapidly getting attention among plant scientists, given its role in modulating seed germination and plant fitness. Here, Simonin and colleagues synthesize the information from 63 studies and provide a thorough overview of this topic's current state of the art. The authors…