The Wheat Seed Microbiome as a Model for Understanding the Transmission of Beneficial Plant-Associated Bacteria.

Wheat seed microbiomes contain specific bacterial taxa, including Pantoea, that show evidence of within-generation persistence and multigenerational transmission.

• Why it matters: Understanding how beneficial plant-associated bacteria are transmitted across generations is crucial for advancing crop improvement and sustainable agriculture.
• What they did: The review synthesizes current knowledge on seed microbiome diversity, assembly, and transmission mechanisms using wheat as a model, highlighting recurrent bacterial taxa and the candidate wheat seed bacterial meta-core.
• The result: Findings suggest seeds serve as ecological and evolutionary hubs for beneficial microbes, offering potential pathways for microbiome inheritance that could inform future crop microbiome management strategies.