The drivers of vine-plant root microbiota endosphere composition include both abiotic and plant-specific factors

Abstract

Microorganisms associated with plants are determinant for their fitness, but also in the case of vine grapes, for the quality and quantity of the wine. Plant microbiota is, however highly variable in space despite deterministic recruitment from the soil reservoir. Therefore, understanding the drivers that shape this microbiota is a key issue. Most studies that have analysed microorganisms associated with vines have been conducted at large scales (e.g., over 100 km) and have analysed the bulk soil and the rhizosphere. In this study, we focused on the root-microbiota endosphere, the most intimate fraction of microorganisms associated with plants. We sampled vine roots in 37 fields distributed throughout a vineyard to investigate drivers shaping the grapevine microbiota at the α- (i.e., within-field) and γ- (i.e., between-field) diversity scales. We demonstrated that vine endospheric microbiota differed according to both the edaphic and plant-specific parameters including cultivar type and age. This work supports the idea of an existing microbial terroir occurring within a domain and offers a new perspective for winemakers to include the microbial terroir in their management practices.

Keywords

• root microbiota
• endosphere
• vineyard
• environmental factors
• plant-specific factors
• small scales