Rhizospheria bacteria of Poplus euphratica improve resistance of wood plants to heavy metals

Populus euphratica is a special kind of woody plant, which lives in desert area of northwestern China and is strongly resistant to multiple abiotic stresses. However, the knowledge about the ecology and physiological roles of microbes associated with P. euphratica is still not enough. In this paper, we isolated 72 strains resistant to heavy metals from rhizospheric soil of wild P. euphratica forest in Shaya County of Xinjiang. There were 50 strains conveying resistance to one of four heavy metals (Cu2+, Ni2+, Pb2+ or Zn2+), and 9 strains were resistant to at least three kinds of these heavy metals. Five of the multi-heavy metal resistant bacteria were inoculated to bamboo willow and the growth inhibition of plant under stresses of Cu2+ or Zn2+ was found to be alleviated to different extent. Among the 5 strains, Pseudomonas sp. Z30 and Cupriavidus sp. N8 significantly improved the growth of plant under stresses of both zinc and copper when compared to the uninoculated controls. The results showed the diversity of heavy metal resistant bacteria associated with P. euphratica which lived in a non-heavy metal polluted area and some of the multi-heavy metal resistant bacteria may greatly improve the growth of host plant under heavy metal.stress. The PGPB associated with P. euphratica has potential application in the xylophyte-microbe remediation of environmental heavy metal pollution.