Fossil-fuel-dependent scenarios could lead to a significant decline of global plant-beneficial bacteria abundance in soils by 2100.

Abstract

Exploiting the potential benefits of plant-associated microbes represents a sustainable approach to enhancing crop productivity. Plant-beneficial bacteria (PBB) provide multiple benefits to plants. However, the biogeography and community structure remain largely unknown. Here we constructed a PBB database to couple microbial taxonomy with their plant-beneficial traits and analysed the global atlas of potential PBB from 4,245 soil samples. We show that the diversity of PBB peaks in low-latitude regions, following a strong latitudinal diversity gradient. The distribution of potential PBB was primarily governed by environmental filtering, which was mainly determined by local climate. Our projections showed that fossil-fuel-dependent future scenarios would lead to a significant decline of potential PBB by 2100, especially biocontrol agents (-1.03%) and stress resistance bacteria (-0.61%), which may potentially threaten global food production and (agro)ecosystem services.