RESEARCH NEWS – Fitness tradeoff in the plant-microbiome

A/P Sanjay Swarup and Team have introduced the concept of fitness trade-off between plants and their microbiome and provide a mechanistic explanation for the same. Competition among rhizosphere bacterial members increase the release of the well-known a glutathione which in turn promotes plant growth under nutrient (here sulfur) deficiency. This improvement in plant fitness came at the cost of bacterial fitness, which we proposed as a ‘trans-kingdom fitness trade-off‘ model. Such trade-offs are likely widespread across host–microbe (holobiont) systems and may enable the holobiont to adapt collectively to environmental cues, a possibility that remains largely unexplored. 

This study underscores the importance of considering microbial functions along with their interactions to design effective microbial consortia for agricultural applications.

This research has been published in the journal Cell Host and Microbe. 

Link to the article : LINK