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Effect of long-term drought on plant-associated microbiota
Billichová, Tereza ; Münzbergová, Zuzana (advisor) ; Kohout, Petr (referee)
Plant-associated microorganisms are very important for plant growth. Microbiota influence, for example, nutrient uptake, flower and fruit production or biocontrol of pathogens. Microorganisms are found in various plant organs. Each plant part then creates different environments for the microorganisms to live in. This may influence their different functions depending on which plant part they are found in. One such function is to help plants cope with adverse conditions. Drought, as an adverse condition, has a major effect on both plants and micro-organisms. The aim of this thesis is to study effect of long-term drought on the composition of the microbiota in the rhizosphere and leaf and root endosphere. Long-term drought affected the composition of microbial communities in different plant parts. According to the original hypothesis, the response to drought of prokaryotes differed from that of fungal communities. Fungal communities are more stable and their alpha diversity did not change much during the different durations. The opposite trend in diversity is seen in prokaryotes, where a relative increase in specialists can also be observed. Regarding specific microbial taxa, the results confirm the previously reported trend of increasing Actinobacteria abundance during drought. For fungi, on the...
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