Contrasting rhizosphere bacterial communities of healthy and wilted Dalbergia sissoo.Roxb forest

ABSTRACT The present study contrasted the bacterial communities of Dalbergia sissoo trees from forests with healthy trees, and forest with wilted trees. The bacterial diversity was assayed by Illumina MiSeq of the ribosomal hypervariable V3-V4 region. Metagenomic analysis revealed that microbial communities and functional diversity varied according to the plant health status. Presence of beneficial phyla such as Proteobacteria was observed lower in the soil of wilted trees than in those of healthy trees. The native microbial flora in wilted soil was highly suppressive and was abundant in pathogenic bacterial genera such as Williamsia, Blastocatella, Methylobacterium, and Brevibacterium. The functional annotation of the data supports the cause of wilt in Pantnagar soil having an abundance of cellulolytic, xylanolytic, denitrifying bacteria, and the limitation of chitinolytic and nitrogen respiring bacterial population. This study paves the way for developing biological control strategies against wilted trees as well as a base for future identification and elucidation of bioinoculant microbes to secure the productivity of Dalbergia sustainably with changing weather and environmental conditions.