Date of Award:

8-2024

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Plants, Soils, and Climate

Committee Chair(s)

Amita Kaundal

Committee

Amita Kaundal

Committee

Jeanette M. Norton

Committee

Shaun Bradley Bushman

Abstract

The world is facing the crisis of climate change, and our crops are exposed to a wide variety of biotic and abiotic stresses. This has challenged the effort to maintain and improve the crop yield to feed the increasing population. Plants associated microbes from extreme climatic conditions have the ability to help plant adapt to various stresses and such microbes can be used as inoculum to grow plants during challenging environmental conditions. Our study aims to explore and analyze the microbiome associated with the Shepherdia species available in Utah. Two native Shepherdia species, S. rotundifolia, and S. argentea, along with their hybrid S. utahensis, were selected for the study. The soil and root samples of all three species from all the locations were collected and processed in the Utah State University laboratory and made ready for DNA extraction. Additionally, the rhizosphere samples were stored for bacterial culture. The alpha diversity analysis suggests that there was significantly different (p≤0.05) bacterial alpha diversity in the bulk soil and rhizosphere of S. rotundifolia across the three locations. Similarly, the rhizosphere bacterial alpha diversity differed significantly (p≤0.05) between the two native species within the same location. However, the alpha diversity of the hybrid buffaloberry samples among the three locations were not significantly different (p>0.05). The beta diversity analysis suggests that the bacterial community composition differed significantly among the locations, bulk soil and nodules in case of hybrid buffaloberry and between the species within the same location. Proteobacteria and Actinobacteriota are dominant in the bulk soil and rhizosphere; while Actinobacteriota are dominant in the root and nodules of all species. Frankia is the dominant genus in the roots and nodules of S. utahensis but there is great diversity in the genus composition in the remaining samples. A total of fifty-nine different bacteria were isolated from the rhizosphere of the hybrid buffaloberry and tested for seven plant growth-promoting (PGP) traits, of which 11 isolates showed all seven PGP traits, which will be further tested for their growth promotion efficiency in plants and commercialized if found effective.

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