Microdiversity of wheat rhizosphere Pseudomonas

The shortage of high-resolution microbiome analyses has left a gap in knowledge on the ability of the crop cultivar to modulate intragenous bacterial diversity within the rhizosphere. Integrating cultivar-dependent and culture-independent targeted rhizosphere sampling has demonstrated profound differences in Pseudomonas communities between Fusarium-resistant and -susceptible wheat cultivars with differences in root morphology. Importantly, the resistant, thin-rooted cultivar hosts a more taxonomically diverse, yet biosynthetically homogeneous, Pseudomonas community enriched in antifungal genes. This work reveals the depth of Pseudomonas microdiverstiy in the wheat rhizosphere as a potential target for designing microbiome-mediated disease resistance.