Synthetic Communities Increase Microbial Diversity and Productivity of Agave tequilana Plants in the Field

Agaves are plants native to North America that sustain life in arid and semiarid ecosystems. Previous studies revealed that cultivated plants of Agave tequilana had lower microbial diversity and functionality than wild Agave species. Here, we tested if synthetic communities (syncoms), based on microbial hubs or taxa with enriched microbial functions, could increase microbial diversity, plant health, and productivity in A. tequilana. We applied 10 syncoms to the phyllospheres of 6-month-old plants of A. tequilana in the field and monitored their development for 2 years. Amplicon sequencing of 16S-rRNA-V4 and ITS2 revealed that the inoculated syncoms played a negligible or minor role in the assembly of the prokaryotic and eukaryotic phyllospheric communities associated with A. tequilana, respectively. However, syncoms based on microbial hubs, particularly those observed in the phyllosphere associated with wild A. salmiana (PFCS), promoted microbial communities with higher alpha diversity. Some of these syncom-derived phyllospheric communities consumed a greater variety of carbon sources; had more complex co-occurrence networks; and increased the content of sugars (oBrix, a measure of productivity in agaves) in the stem and changed the leaf metabolome. Our work demonstrates that the application of syncoms formulated based on predicted microbe-microbe interactions and metagenomic analyses of microbial communities in cultivated and wild plant species represents an effective tool to improve the sustainability and productivity of crops in arid ecosystems.Copyright (c) 2023 The Author(s).