Abstract
Soybean is among South Africa’s top crops in terms of production figures. Over the past few years there has been increasingly more damage caused to local soybean by plant-parasitic nematode infections. The presence of Meloidogyne (root-knot nematodes) and Pratylenchus spp. (root lesion nematodes) in soybean fields can cripple the country’s production, however, little is known about the soil microbial communities associated with soybean in relation to different levels of Meloidogyne and Pratylenchus infestations, as well as the interaction(s) between them. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the nematode population assemblages and endemic rhizosphere bacteria associated with soybean using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). The abundance of bacterial genera that were then identified as being significant using linear discriminant analysis (LDA) Effect Size (LEfSe) was compared to the abundance of the most prevalent plant-parasitic nematode genera found across all sampled sites, viz. Meloidogyne and Pratylenchus. While several bacterial genera were identified as significant using LEfSe, only two with increased abundance were associated with decreased abundance of Meloidogyne and Pratylenchus. However, six bacterial genera were associated with decreased Pratylenchus abundance. It is therefore possible that endemic bacterial strains can serve as an alternative method for reducing densities of plant-parasitic nematode genera and in this way reduce the damages caused to this economically important crop.
Highlights
Accepted: 19 August 2021Plant parasitic nematodes (PPN) cause substantial yield losses to agricultural crops, with annual global crop losses estimated at $78 billion [1]
Most research has been done on species of PPN genera such as Heterodera, Meloidogyne and Pratylenchus and their potential impact on soybean production
More research is being done on the use of microorganisms as potential biocontrol agents of nematodes to fill the gap left by the removal of various chemical nematicides from the international markets
Summary
Accepted: 19 August 2021Plant parasitic nematodes (PPN) cause substantial yield losses to agricultural crops, with annual global crop losses estimated at $78 billion [1]. Aphelenchoides bessseyi, Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, Ditylenchus dispaci, Globodera spp., Heterodera spp., Meloidogyne spp., Naccobus aberrans, Radopholus similis, Rotylenchulus reniformis and Xiphinema index are considered the top 10 nematode pests worldwide [2] Due to their global distribution and wide range of host plants, of all the PPN genera and species, root-knot nematodes (RKN; Meloidogyne spp.) and lesion nematodes (Pratylenchus spp.) are harmful to crops in South Africa and can cause substantial damage and adversely affect production figures of a wide range of economically important crops, such as the potato, grain, oilseed, industrial and fruit crops produced in this country [3,4]. In the Mpumalanga Highveld region of South Africa crops that are usually planted include maize (Zea mays), wheat (Triticum spp.), groundnut (Arachis hypogaea), soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.), sunflower (Helianthus spp.) and potato (Solanum tuberosum) [10] of which all are known hosts of both RKN and lesion nematodes.
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