Organic Farming Enhances the Diversity and Community Structure of Endophytic Archaea and Fungi in Maize Plant: a Shotgun
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Organic Farming Enhances the Diversity and Community Structure of Endophytic Archaea and Fungi in Maize Plant: a Shotgun Approach Ayomide Emmanuel Fadiji 1 & Ayansina Segun Ayangbenro 1 & Olubukola Oluranti Babalola 1 Received: 16 June 2020 / Accepted: 11 August 2020 # Sociedad Chilena de la Ciencia del Suelo 2020
Abstract This study compares, for the first time, the diversity and community structure of the endophytic archaea and fungi inhabiting the roots of maize plant cultivated using two different fertilizer regimes and the control field via shotgun metagenomics. This was used to verify our hypothesis that organic farming positively influences the diversity, beneficial effects, and abundance of plant endophytic communities as compared with conventional farming. Total DNA extraction was carried out using the roots of maize plants cultivated with organic fertilizer (FK), inorganic fertilizer (NK), and without any fertilizer (CK) at different farming sites in an experimental field and sequenced using shotgun metagenomics. In all, 3 archaea phyla, namely, Crenarchaeota, Euryarchaeota, and Thaumarchaeota, and 2 fungi phyla, namely, Ascomycota and Basidiomycota, were identified in the samples with higher abundance in samples from the FK site. Our diversity results revealed that the abundance of endophytic archaea and fungi species across the farming sites are in the order NK < CK < FK. The results indicate that organic farming enhances the abundance of endophytic archaea and fungi which might be a boost to sustainable agricultural practices. Furthermore, some new genera of endophytic archaea and fungi were identified from the maize roots. Future studies into how these novel endophytes can be cultured are important in a bid to explore their functions in sustainable agriculture as well as identify their biotechnological importance. Keywords Endophytes . Fertilizer application . Plant-microbe interactions . Metagenomes . Sustainable agriculture
1 Introduction Chemical and biological fertilizers are often used for the improvement of soil fertility; still, the dependence on inorganic fertilizers for agricultural practice has led to many health problems and severe imbalance in the ecosystem (Savci 2012; Sharma and Chetani 2017; Chandini et al. 2019). Thus, in a bid to reduce or possibly eliminate the side effects of inorganic fertilizers, a new agricultural practice called sustainable or organic agriculture had been adopted (Chowdhury 2004). Organic agriculture was defined by the US Department of Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s42729-020-00324-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Olubukola Oluranti Babalola [email protected] 1
Food Security and Safety Niche, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, North-West University, Private Mail Bag X2046, Mmabatho, South Africa
Agriculture as an ecological management method that promotes biological cycles, biodiversity, and biological activities
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