Simulated precipitation in a desert ecosystem

Soil microbiota plays a fundamental role in nutrient cycles and plant fitness. However, the response of bacterial and fungal communities interacting with plants to an increase in the water regime in natural environments has yet to be extensively studied. We therefore decided to study the response of rhizospheric and root endophytic microbial communities to simulated intense precipitation in a natural desert environment. We used amplicon sequencing to identify bacterial and fungal communities. Differences in microbial community composition were observed, and taxa that were differentially abundant under dry conditions or after precipitation were identified. Acidobacteria and Actinobacteria, characteristics under drought conditions were identified while the composition of the global community did not change drastically. The addition of water induced a rapid response from little characterized microbiota potentially involved in nutrient recycling, such as rhizobia and dark septate endophytes. These results highlighted the fundamental role of precipitation in modifying microbial composition in natural desert, and identified little studied taxa potentially crucial to the plant health in desertic environments such as dark septate endophytes.