The Immense Functional Attributes of Maize Rhizosphere Microbiome: A Shotgun Sequencing Approach

Saheed Adekunle Akinola, Ayansina Segun Ayangbenro and Olubukola Oluranti Babalola
Additional contact information
Saheed Adekunle Akinola: Food Security and Safety Niche, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, North-West University, Private Mail Bag X2046, Mmabatho 2735, South Africa
Ayansina Segun Ayangbenro: Food Security and Safety Niche, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, North-West University, Private Mail Bag X2046, Mmabatho 2735, South Africa
Olubukola Oluranti Babalola: Food Security and Safety Niche, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, North-West University, Private Mail Bag X2046, Mmabatho 2735, South Africa

Agriculture, 2021, vol. 11, issue 2, 1-14

Abstract: The northwest (NW) province of South Africa is a semi-arid area, often disturbed by soil extremes such as drought and intense temperature. However, many functions possessed by the rhizosphere microbiome are still required, especially those inhabiting arid and semi-arid soils. This study involves a metagenomic comparison of the major metabolic attributes of two maize rhizosphere soils and their surrounding soils. Here, we hypothesized that there is a considerable difference between the functional diversity of maize rhizosphere and bulk soils and that the rhizosphere soil has distinct functional traits of agricultural importance. A high-throughput sequencing approach was used to assess the metabolic profile of rhizosphere soil microbiota of maize collected from the Gauteng and NW provinces of South Africa. The relative abundance of 13 functional hit categories was significantly different between the sampling sites. The diversity indices showed a considerable difference between the rhizosphere and surrounding soils. The difference in the chemical properties of the sampling sites was responsible for the variation in the microbial functional composition. Nevertheless, the presence of a high relative abundance of functional categories with unknown functions in SEED subsystem-2 coupled with the large number of functional hits conferring a response to soil stressors viz. oxidative stress, heat shock, osmotic stress, and cold shock noticed in the rhizosphere samples may indicate the presence of novel genes at the sampling sites. Exploring the plant growth-promoting traits of microorganisms present at these sites could eliminate the constraint posed by soil stressors on sustainable agriculture.

Keywords: food safety; high-throughput metagenomics; microbial functional distinctiveness; novel genes; soil stressors; sustainable agriculture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/11/2/118/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/11/2/118/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:11:y:2021:i:2:p:118-:d:491549

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().