Evaluating Bouteloua gracilis cultivars performance after drought, the role of the soil microbiome

After the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, it was common to reseed native grasses in areas impacted by the drought to help restore ecosystem structure and function. Given the forecasts of severe drought events, reseeding may need to be employed more frequently to enhance post-drought recovery. It is imperative to understand the adaptability of cultivars to the environmental conditions in which they are planted, including how they interact with the soil microbiome. Here, we used a common garden experiment with two cultivars of Bouteloua gracilis that were planted with soil microbial inocula extracted from either previously droughted or non-droughted soils. Our goal was to ex-amine whether the post-drought legacy of altered soil microbial communities affected the growth and performance of B. gracilis cultivars. We found no significant differences in relative growth rate or plant biomass, and minimal differences in the microbial community composition between the two cultivars. These results suggest that the post-drought legacy of altered soil microbial communities did not differentially affect growth and performance of the two B. gracilis cultivars evaluated, and that the growth of these cultivars did not differ in their effects on the soil bacterial communities found under ambient vs. previously droughted conditions.