Richness and antagonistic effects co-affect plant growth promotion by synthetic microbial consortia

• Published in: Applied soil ecology : a section of Agriculture, ecosystems & environment ecosystems & environment, 2022-02, Vol.170, p.104300, Article 104300
• Main Authors: Wang, Yan, Liu, Hongjun, Shen, Zongzhuan, Miao, Yu, Wang, Jie, Jiang, Xueting, Shen, Qirong, Li, Rong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antagonistic effect; Biodiversity ecosystem function; Microbial richness; Plant growth promotion; Synthetic microbial consortia
• ISSN: 0929-1393; 1873-0272
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apsoil.2021.104300

Plant-related microbial communities are essential to plant growth and development, and empirical evidence suggests that inoculation with a synthetic microbial consortium can enhance plant performance; however, to manipulate the functions of these communities, we require a better understanding of the influencing factors. Here, we used the biodiversity ecosystem function (BEF) framework to specifically test the impact of community richness (1, 2, 4, or 8 strains per community) and antagonistic intensity on plant growth promotion in two kinds of nutritional environments. We found that increasing the richness of microbes can improve the accumulation of plant biomass, revealing that diversity effects were stronger than single-strain effects. The intensity of antagonism between highly diverse microbes may have a consistent negative effect on plant growth in comparison with the effects of communities with the same richness; intriguingly, this negative effect did not change positive BEF relationships. These results suggested that high diversity in the synthetic microbial consortia harboured stable and effective plant growth promotion capability and, in turn, also increased susceptibility to the negative effects of antagonism among microbial strains. •Increasing microbial community richness had a positive effect on plant growth.•Increasing antagonism intensity had a clear passive effect on plant growth.•Synthetic community with lower diversity showed inconsistent performance in different resource conditions.•Antagonistic intensity among strains does not change the positive BEF relationship.