Speaker
Description
Successful recruitment, colonisation and stability of plant-associated microbial communities depends on the microbes’ ability to successfully interpret and appropriately respond to environmental signals. We have made considerable progress towards understanding soil community signalling and plant colonisation. However, the central role of mobile genetic elements (MGEs) – bacteriophages, plasmids, and integrative conjugative elements- within the rhizosphere community, and how they interact as part of the wider mobilome remains poorly understood. MGEs disseminate genetic information, including ecologically important traits such as virulence and metabolic competence across large phylogenetic distances, and disrupt both regulatory networks and niche preferences. Therefore, understanding how they influence rhizosphere microbiome assembly and maintenance is paramount for advancing plant health. My work aims to understand how the mobilome shapes microbial interactions within the rhizosphere, the role of the plant in shaping the mobilome, and how different MGEs influence each other. I have recently shown that MGEs alter bacterial behaviour and rhizosphere colonisation at a systemic level. Accessory genes, frequently encoded on plasmids, are able to alter bacterial behaviour by hijacking key regulatory pathways that are important for rhizosphere success. These genes encode diverse signalling proteins that can cause widespread regulatory impacts, that ultimately lead to changes in bacterial social behaviours in keystone species. In an environment where community instability and niche collapse can have devastating consequences, understanding the role of MGEs, and the regulators which they encode is paramount. In this talk I will discuss how I am using model wheat-P. fluorescens-pQBR103 system, in combination with synthetic, plant specific communities, to unpick the role of plasmids and their encoded regulators on the dynamics and community ecology of the rhizosphere.
