Current opinion on methods and perspectives for tracking and monitoring of plant growth‒promoting bacteria

RILLING, JOAQUIN; NANIPIERI, PAOLO; CASSAN, FABRICIO; MARUYAMA, FUMITO; JORQUERA, MILKO

SOIL BIOLOGY AND BIOCHEMISTRY

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2018 p. 1 - 58

0038-0717

Since 1980?s, plant growth‒promoting bacteria (PGPB) have been studied as a sustainable alternative to the use of chemical fertilizers to increase crop yields in agriculture. Effective PGPB have been isolated from diverse plant (i.e., endosphere and phyllosphere) and soil (i.e., rhizosphere) compartments. Despite that promising results on plant growth promotion have commonly been observed under laboratory conditions, the successful application of PGPB under field has been limited and this is one of the causes of the lack of knowledge on the ecological/environmental factors affecting colonization, prevalence and beneficial activity of beneficial bacteria on crops. Generally, it is accepted that the effectiveness of PGPB is conditioned to their ability to colonize a niche and compete with indigenous plant microbiome under agronomic conditions. However, most studies do not include tracking or monitoring of PGPB in the environment after their application, and the beneficial effects on plants are measured by determining biomass‒ and physiology‒related parameters without the confirmation of bacterial colonization. To the date, methods based on reporter genes, immunological reactions and nucleic acids have been applied for tracking or monitoring the PGPB in seeds, soils or in planta after inoculation. In this review, we describe, compare and discuss the methods used for tracking and monitoring PGPB, including challenges and perspectives of some novel methods.