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Abstract

The rhizobiota, particularly nitrogen-fixing bacteria, play a crucial role in plant functioning by providing essential nutrients and defense against pathogens. This study investigated the diversity of nitrogen-fixing bacteria in a relatively understudied habitat: technosoils developed from industrial soda production. To analyze the bacterial diversity in the rhizosphere soils of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and aster (Tripolium pannonicum Jacq.), regions of the nifH gene were amplified and sequenced from the resident bacterial communities. A polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane was employed for metagenomic DNA extraction, enhancing the detection of nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Prior to standard DNA extraction, an enrichment step was conducted in nitrogen-free JMV medium at 26 degrees C for 24 h, with a modification that replaced soil with the PVDF membrane. This approach enabled a more comprehensive analysis of the rhizosphere bacterial community, revealing that unique amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) in aster and wheat membrane samples accounted for a notable proportion of all ASVs in the dataset (8.5% and 23%, respectively) that were not captured using the standard method. Additionally, our findings demonstrated higher alpha diversity of nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the wheat rhizosphere compared to the aster rhizosphere. In wheat, the dominant genus was Insolitispirillum (38.80%), followed by unclassified genera within Gammaproteobacteria (9.76%) and Rhodospirillaceae (4.74%). In contrast, the aster rhizosphere was predominantly occupied by Azotobacter (95.69%).

Keywords

Bacterial diversity; Nitrogen-fixing bacteria; nifH; PVDF membrane; Rhizosphere

Published in

Scientific Reports
2025, volume: 15, number: 1, article number: 16079
Publisher: NATURE PORTFOLIO

SLU Authors

UKÄ Subject classification

Soil Science

Publication identifier

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-00173-5

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/141970