ABS 128: The Effects of Drought and Microbiome Abundance on Plant Functional Traits

Wiktoria Golemo ¹ , Ryan Ribeiro Saboia ¹ , Chandra Jack ²

¹ Lasry Center for Biosciences
² Clark University

Van Wickle (2025) Volume 1, ABS 128

Abstract: As of now, current agricultural practices are not economical, efficient, or sustainable, with the use of heavy synthetic fertilizers, increasing human populations, and climate change related issues, such as drought, being increasingly exacerbated. Gaining a deeper understanding of how the presence of microbes ameliorates stress and affects plant functional traits opens the door for more sustainable agricultural practices. We compare how microbiome abundance from two different types of soil - agricultural and prairie - influence agronomically important traits of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum) under abiotic stress, simulated by drought conditions. We found that the agricultural site had higher root to shoot biomass and root biomass in well-watered conditions, while the prairie site had higher shoot biomass. This suggests that a less biodiverse rhizosphere causes nitrogen deprivation in plants, prompting an energetic tradeoff to expand the root system architecture in order to optimize microbial recruiting. Meanwhile, the prairie site’s more diverse rhizosphere provided it with enough nutrients to proceed its development. This research promotes further insight on the interconnectedness of microbes and abiotic stress, and allows for more work to be done on how to more sustainably manage agricultural sites.