It is thought that modern wheat genotypes have lost their capacity to associate with soil microbes that would help them acquire nutrients from the soil. To test this hypothesis, ten ancestral and modern wheat genotypes were seeded in a field experiment under low fertilization conditions. The rhizosphere soil was collected, its DNA extracted and submitted to shotgun metagenomic sequencing. In contrast to our hypothesis, there was no significant difference in the global rhizosphere metagenomes of the different genotypes, and this held true when focusing the analyses on specific taxonomic or functional categories of genes. Some genes were significantly more abundant in the rhizosphere of one genotype or another, but they comprised only a small portion of the total genes identified and did not affect the global rhizosphere metagenomes. Our study shows for the first time that the rhizosphere metagenome of wheat is stable across a wide variety of genotypes when growing under nutrient poor conditions.

中文翻译：

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根际鸟枪法宏基因组分析未能显示在低肥料投入下生长的祖先和现代小麦基因型之间的差异

人们认为，现代小麦基因型已经失去了与土壤微生物联系的能力，这将帮助它们从土壤中获取养分。为了验证这一假设，在低施肥条件下的田间试验中播种了 10 种祖先和现代小麦基因型。收集根际土壤，提取其 DNA 并提交鸟枪宏基因组测序。与我们的假设相反，不同基因型的全球根际宏基因组没有显着差异，当将分析重点放在基因的特定分类或功能类别上时，这也是正确的。一些基因在一种或另一种基因型的根际中明显更丰富，但它们仅占已鉴定的总基因的一小部分，并且不影响全球根际宏基因组。