Dynamic changes in the endophytic bacterial community during maturation of Amorphophallus muelleri seeds

Min Yang; Ying Qi; Jiani Liu; Zhixing Wu; Penghua Gao; Zebin Chen; Feiyan Huang; Lei Yu

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2022.996854

Dynamic changes in the endophytic bacterial community during maturation of Amorphophallus muelleri seeds

Front Microbiol. 2022 Sep 26:13:996854. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.996854. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Min Yang^{1

2}, Ying Qi¹, Jiani Liu¹, Zhixing Wu¹, Penghua Gao¹, Zebin Chen¹, Feiyan Huang¹, Lei Yu¹

Affiliations

¹ Yunnan Urban Agricultural Engineering and Technological Research Center, College of Agronomy, Kunming University, Kunming, China.
² College of Plant Protection, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, China.

Abstract

The seed microbiota is considered to be the starting point of the accumulation of plant microbiota, which is conducive to the preservation and germination of seeds and the establishment and development of seedlings. Our understanding of the colonization and migration dynamics of microbial taxa during seed development and maturation is still limited. This study used 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing to investigate the dynamic changes in the composition and diversity of the endophytic bacterial community during maturation of Amorphophallus muelleri seeds. The results showed that as seeds matured (green to red), the Shannon index of their endophytic bacterial community first decreased and then increased, and the ACE and Chao1 indices of the endophytic bacterial community decreased gradually. The Shannon, ACE, and Chao1 indices of the endophytic bacterial community in the seed coat first decreased and then increased. Principal coordinate analysis of the bacterial communities revealed that the seed coat at different maturity stages showed significantly distinct bacterial communities and formed different clusters according to maturity stage. The bacterial communities of green and red seeds showed a clear separation, but they both overlapped with those of yellow seeds, indicating that some core taxa were present throughout seed maturation, but their relative abundance was dynamically changing. As the seeds grew more mature, the relative abundance of some bacterial communities with plant growth-promoting traits and others correlated with plant resistance (e.g., Burkholderia-Caballeronia-Paraburkholderia, Bacillus, Pseudomonas, Bradyrhizobium, Streptomyces) tended to increase and peaked in fully mature seeds and seed coats. The endophytic bacterial community of A. muelleri seeds seems to be driven by the seed maturation state, which can provide a theoretical basis for a comprehensive understanding of the assembly process of the microbial community during A. muelleri seed maturation.

Keywords: Amorphophallus muelleri; dynamic; endophytic bacterial community; maturation; seeds.