About this Research Topic
The relationship between plants and their surroundings, especially those plant-microbe interactions with a beneficial output, remain the center of considerable attention. Plants depend on their microbiomes for multifarious life-supporting activities, including nutrient acquisition and augmentation of their defense systems against biotic and abiotic stresses. The interactions between a plant and its microbiome are highly complex and dynamic in nature. The plant immune system in particular is thought to have a profound impact in determining the plant microbiome structure and diversity.
Characterizing the plant microbiome and its function could be applied for better crop design and management, especially in resource-limited environments, and to protect plants from intruding pathogens. Therefore, a deep understanding of the interrelationships of the soil-plant-microorganism system is essential for improving the efficacy and potential applications of plant growth-promoting inocula for achieving sustainable food security and development. Recent studies of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria show that cocktails of useful bacteria in the form of synthetic communities are better than single inoculants, which face competition from other microorganisms and could be killed or suppressed under sub-optimal conditions. Microbial activity should also be considered in the construction of microbial co-inoculants. Understanding plant-microbe interactions and mechanisms will also help in the development of smart microbial fertilizer formulation and application in the future.
This Research Topic welcomes the following subtopics:
• Interactomics for sustainable agriculture: studies using novel combinatorial approaches employing computational expertise to analyze the data from genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, and proteomics-based studies, leading to identification of targets and validating wet lab experiments with molecular evidence for resolving issues in agriculture and sustainability. Please note that purely descriptive sequencing studies will not be considered.
• Plant microbiome studies deciphering the structure and composition of complex microbial communities associated directly or indirectly with the plant (i.e., endophytic, epiphytic, and rhizospheric communities) and their significance.
Topic Editors Alok Kumar Srivastava and Prem Lal Kashyap have created commercial products related to the Topic. All other topic editors declare no competing interests with regard to the Research Topic subject.
Keywords: plant microbiome, interactomics, rhizospheric community, metabolomics, microbe-mediated stress management
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
