Competition between resident rhizosphere bacteria enhances phytopathogen suppression via emergent antagonism.
Competitive interactions between resident rhizosphere bacteria Ralstonia pickettii RAL5 and Acinetobacter oleivorans ACI4 produce emergent antagonism that significantly suppresses the phytopathogen R. solanacearum by up to 70% in greenhouse conditions.
- Why it matters: Understanding how weakly antagonistic resident bacteria can collaborate to inhibit pathogens addresses a key gap in microbiome-based biocontrol strategies, potentially leading to more sustainable disease management in agriculture.
- What they did: Researchers conducted systematic pairwise interaction screenings of rhizosphere bacteria, focusing on RAL5 and ACI4, and analyzed their combined effects on pathogen suppression through transcriptomics, metabolomics, and greenhouse experiments involving tomato plants.
- The result: The co-culture of RAL5 and ACI4 enhanced pathogen suppression via emergent antagonism driven by asymmetric competition, metabolite shifts, and bacterial lysis, revealing a new avenue for harnessing resident microbiome interactions for biocontrol.