Communications Biology (Apr 2021)

The hierarchy of root branching order determines bacterial composition, microbial carrying capacity and microbial filtering

  • William L. King,
  • Caylon F. Yates,
  • Jing Guo,
  • Suzanne M. Fleishman,
  • Ryan V. Trexler,
  • Michela Centinari,
  • Terrence H. Bell,
  • David M. Eissenstat

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-01988-4
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 4, no. 1
pp. 1 – 9

Abstract

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William King, Caylon Yates, and colleagues utilize a 23-year-old common garden experiment to investigate how microbial filtering acts across root branching order. Their results demonstrate that roots of different orders have different microbial assemblages, and point to lower order roots as the main point of microbial interaction with fine roots.