Phytomicrobiome Coordination Signals Hold Potential for Climate Change-Resilient Agriculture

A plant growing under natural conditions is always associated with a substantial, diverse, and well-orchestrated community of microbes—the phytomicrobiome. The phytomicrobiome genome is larger and more fluid than that of the plant. The microbes of the phytomicrobiome assist the plant in nutrient uptake, pathogen control, stress management, and overall growth and development. At least some of this is facilitated by the production of signal compounds, both plant-to-microbe and microbe back to the plant. This is best characterized in the legume nitrogen fixing and mycorrhizal symbioses. More recently lipo-chitooligosaccharide (LCO) and thuricin 17, two microbe-to-plant signals, have been shown to regulate stress responses in a wide range of plant species. While thuricin 17 production is constitutive, LCO signals are only produced in response to a signal from the plant. We discuss how some signal compounds will only be discovered when root-associated microbes are exposed to appropriate plant-to-microbe signals (positive regulation), and this might only happen under specific conditions, such as abiotic stress, while others may only be produced in the absence of a particular plant-to-microbe signal molecule (negative regulation). Some phytomicrobiome members only elicit effects in a specific crop species (specialists), while other phytomicrobiome members elicit effects in a wide range of crop species (generalists). We propose that some specialists could exhibit generalist activity when exposed to signals from the correct plant species. The use of microbe-to-plant signals can enhance crop stress tolerance and could result in more climate change resilient agricultural systems.