Agave lechuguilla rhizosphere microbiome from Central and Meseta subregions from the Chihuahuan Desert

Agave lechuguilla posses one of the widest distributions within the Chihuahuan desert. We hypothesize that this success to live in arid conditions is partly explained by interactions with plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) such as nitrogen fixing bacteria (NFB) and organic phosphorus mineralizing bacteria (OPMB). In this work, we explored how soil properties and plant age influence the composition of bacterial communities, their interactions, and the enzymatic activity and abundance of specific groups such as NFB and OPMB in two subregions of the Chihuahuan desert. We found that soil properties are contrasting between Central and Meseta subregions, and had a clear effect on the composition of bacterial communities, the presence of mature plants of A. lechuguilla stimulate the activity and abundance of nutrient improvement rhizobacteria, by an increase in TOC, NH4, NO2+NO3. Besides, the rhizobacteria networks had a higher proportion of positive interactions than bulk soil networks and the hubs taxa were those able to increase the availability of nutrients, such as env OPS17, Chthoniobacteracea, Candidatus Udeobacter, Gemmatimonadaceae Uncultured, S0134 terrestrial group and BD211 terrestrial group. This work is another step in order to unveil the functioning of the interactions between rhizobacterial communities and their host, and how these microorganisms favour the distribution and resistance of the plants even under the harsh conditions of the aridlands.