Portrait of author

Nan Yang:
Microbe-plant Interactions: Impact of bacterial interactions and multispecies biofilms on plant growth and drought tolerance

Date: 13-04-2022    Supervisor: Mette Burmølle & Søren J. Sørensen



Synergistic effects on biofilm formation are highly prevalent among different bacterial soil isolates in cocultures, which indicates the importance of bacterial interspecific interactions in multispecies biofilm communities. However, the prevalence of such interactions in biofilms formed on plant roots and their potential impacts on plant growth have not been fully explored yet.

The work in this Ph.D. thesis explores the impact of a four-species bacterial consortium (SPMX) on plant drought tolerance, and the spatial organization within this multispecies biofilm during microbe-plant interactions. Our results revealed the emergent properties of the bacterial consortium as the underlying cause of enhanced plant drought tolerance and induced plant growth at the early stage.

Furthermore, we visually followed multispecies biofilm formation and its spatial organization changes on plant roots over time by using fluorescence in situ hybridization combined with confocal microscopy (FISH-CLSM). The studies presented in this Ph.D. thesis have provided new knowledge of emergent bacterial community properties affecting plant growth and drought tolerance, and have improved our understanding of spatial organization of plant root-associated microbial communities.