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Recovery and Community Succession of the Zostera marina Rhizobiome after Transplantation.

ABSTRACT: Seagrasses can form mutualisms with their microbiomes that facilitate the exchange of energy sources, nutrients, and hormones and ultimately impact plant stress resistance. Little is known about community succession within the belowground seagrass microbiome after disturbance and its potential role in the plant's recovery after transplantation. We transplanted Zostera marina shoots with and without an intact rhizosphere and cultivated plants for 4 weeks while characterizing microbiome recovery and effects on plant traits. Rhizosphere and root microbiomes were compositionally distinct, likely representing discrete microbial niches. Furthermore, microbiomes of washed transplants were initially different from those of sod transplants and recovered to resemble an undisturbed state within 14 days. Conspicuously, changes in the microbial communities of washed transplants corresponded with changes in the rhizosphere sediment mass and root biomass, highlighting the strength and responsive nature of the relationship between plants, their microbiome, and the environment. Potential mutualistic microbes that were enriched over time include those that function in the cycling and turnover of sulfur, nitrogen, and plant-derived carbon in the rhizosphere environment. These findings highlight the importance and resilience of the seagrass microbiome after disturbance. Consideration of the microbiome will have meaningful implications for habitat restoration practices.IMPORTANCE Seagrasses are important coastal species that are declining globally, and transplantation can be used to combat these declines. However, the bacterial communities associated with seagrass rhizospheres and roots (the microbiome) are often disturbed or removed completely prior to transplantation. The seagrass microbiome benefits seagrasses through metabolite, nutrient, and phytohormone exchange and contributes to the ecosystem services of seagrass meadows by cycling sulfur, nitrogen, and carbon. This experiment aimed to characterize the importance and resilience of the seagrass belowground microbiome by transplanting Zostera marina with and without intact rhizospheres and tracking microbiome and plant morphological recovery over 4 weeks. We found the seagrass microbiome to be resilient to transplantation disturbance, recovering after 14 days. Additionally, microbiome recovery was linked with seagrass morphology, coinciding with increases in the rhizosphere sediment mass and root biomass. The results of this study can be used to include microbiome responses in informing future restoration work.

SUBMITTER: Wang L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7848905 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Ecophysiological stress and physical disturbance are capable of structuring meadows through a combination of direct biomass removal and recruitment limitation; however, predicting these effects at landscape scales has rarely been successful. To model environmental influence on sexual recruitment in perennial Zostera marina, we selected a sub-tidal, light-replete study site with seasonal extremes in temperature and wave energy. During an 8-year observation period, areal coverage increased from 4.8 to 42.7%. Gains were stepwise in pattern, attributable to annual recruitment of patches followed by centrifugal growth and coalescence. Recruitment varied from 13 to 4,894 patches per year. Using a multiple linear regression approach, we examined the association between patch appearance and relative wave energy, atmospheric condition and water temperature. Two models were developed, one appropriate for the dispersal of naked seeds, and another for rafted flowers. Results indicated that both modes of sexual recruitment varied as functions of wind, temperature, rainfall and wave energy, with a regime shift in wind-wave energy corresponding to periods of rapid colonization within our site. Temporal correlations between sexual recruitment and time-lagged climatic summaries highlighted floral induction, seed bank and small patch development as periods of vulnerability. Given global losses in seagrass coverage, regions of recovery and re-colonization will become increasingly important. Lacking landscape-scale process models for seagrass recruitment, temporally explicit statistical approaches presented here could be used to forecast colonization trajectories and to provide managers with real-time estimates of future meadow performance; i.e., when to expect a good year in terms of seagrass expansion. To facilitate use as forecasting tools, we did not use statistical composites or normalized variables as our predictors. This study, therefore, represents a first step toward linking remotely acquired environmental data to sexual recruitment, an important measure of seagrass performance that translates directly into landscape-scale coverage change.

Dataset Information

Recovery and Community Succession of the Zostera marina Rhizobiome after Transplantation.

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