ROLE OF ENDOPHYTES DURING SEED DEVELOPMENT AND IN SEEDLING GROWTH
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Date
2018-01-01
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University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore
Abstract
Seed microbiome has a strategic importance as it connects the maternal microbiome with next generation, seedling microbiome. Seed microbiome (bacteria & fungi) can be viewed as the transfer of microbial memory of life history adaptions to the next generation. Against this background present study was taken up to study the role of endophytes during seed development and in seedling growth. Overall, 64 fungal endophytes and 32 bacterial endophytes were recovered from various pod tissues (pod coat, seed coat and cotyledon). These results indicated that the pod coat harbour rich diversity of microbiome compared to seed coat and cotyledon. Most of the seed coat and cotyledon isolates were subsets of those present in the pod coat. Treatment of developing pods of cowpea with bavistin and streptomycin sulphate decreased the microbiome richness in pod coat tissue compared to control pods. Based on the data it was evident that the pod coat tissue is the source of endophytes for both the seed coat and the cotyledon. Probably due to the impoverished microbiome, pods treated with bavistin and streptomycin sulphate, had significantly reduced average seed weight compared to control pods. Streptomycin sulphate treatment significantly reduced seedling vigour compared to control seeds. In summary these results indicate that seeds are rich sites of both fungal and bacterial endophytes and that removal of the
endophytes through treatment with fungicide and antibiotic could compromise seed development and seedling growth. However more studies are required to clearly establish the role of endophytes at large in seed developmental processes.