Keystone Pseudomonas species in the wheat phyllosphere microbiome mitigate Fusarium head blight by altering host pH

Xu et al., 2025

Phyllosphere microbiota play crucial roles in supporting host performance. However, the dynamic changes of phyllosphere-associated microbiome during pathogen infections and their impacts on plant health remain unknown. Here, we found phyllosphere microbes can mitigate wheat Fusarium head blight (FHB), a severe disease caused by Fusarium graminearum (F. graminearum) pathogen that promotes infection by inducing host alkalinization. Using wheat head microbial community profiling and metatranscriptomics, we found Pseudomonas spp. significantly enriched on infected wheat heads. Through isolating 595 bacterial strains from infected wheat heads—including 196 Pseudomonas isolates—we identified certain enriched Pseudomonas isolates capable of producing organic acids that counteract pathogen-induced pH upshift. In vitro experiments confirm the selective promotion of specific host-acidifying Pseudomonas in wheat heads. Field trials confirmed that host-acidifying Pseudomonas strains effectively controlled FHB. These findings highlight the pivotal role of plant-beneficial microbes in host pH regulation and offer innovative avenues for sustainable plant disease control.

https://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/fulltext/S1931-3128%2825%2900450-0

Plant-plant nitrogen transfer is prevalent in a semi-arid shrubland and affects the foliar N content of recipient plants

González-Díaz & Montesinos-Navarro

In dry ecosystems, plants cope with limited nutrients such as nitrogen (N), which is vital for growth. While nitrogen sharing between plants is known in agriculture, it is less understood in natural, semi-arid environments.

We studied nitrogen transfer between plants in a semi-arid shrubland in Spain and how this affects the nutrition of the neighbours. Using a stable isotope of nitrogen (¹⁵N), we labelled donor plants and tracked its movement to nearby plants over more than a year.

Nitrogen transfer was widespread: over 70% of neighbouring plants received nitrogen, most within a week of labelling. N transfer started in less than a week, and reached the maximum values approximately 60 days after labelling, getting back to pre-labelling values after 120 days. Repeated pulses increased both the transfer magnitude and the leaf nitrogen content of receiver plants. These results show that nitrogen exchange among plants is common in semi-arid shrublands and may help species coexist and thrive in nutrient-poor environments.

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.70241

Rhizobium tropici Metabolites Induce Defence-Related Genes and Promote Sclerotinia Sclerotiorum Stem Rot Control in Chickpeas

de Sousa et al., 2025

Brazil has seen a steady increase in domestic chickpea production, and the crop is expected to gain growing importance across the country. However, solutions for effective pest and disease management remain limited. Many soil-borne phytopathogens that affect other crops can also infect chickpeas, increasing disease incidence due to higher initial inoculum levels. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of concentrated metabolites produced by Rhizobium tropici (CM-RT) on resistance induction and control of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum in chickpeas. Different CM-RT application methods were tested and disease incidence was assessed. Additionally, the relative expression of several defence-related genes was analyzed in CM-RT treated plants. Our results show that root application of CM-RT significantly reduced disease incidence and was statistically equivalent to the commercial elicitor based on acibenzolar-S-methyl. Gene expression analysis revealed the upregulation of key defence genes involved in jasmonic acid, ethylene, and oxidative stress pathways, suggesting a priming effect. These findings suggest that CM-RT can serve as an effective and eco-friendly alternative for disease control by resistance induction in chickpeas.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sae2.70103

The effect of temporal variability on the stability of species interactions

Violeta Calleja-Solanas 

Functional team selection as a framework for local adaptation in plants and their belowground microbiomes 

Nancy Collins and César Marín Johnson

The paper presents functional team selection (FTS) as a major conceptual advance in plant–microbiome ecology. FTS explains how limiting resources and/or stress selects cooperative microbial teams that promote plant adaptation, integrating ecological feedback and evolutionary selection to predict when and where resilient plant–microbiome partnerships will arise.

Abstract

Multicellular organisms are hosts to diverse communities of smaller organisms known as microbiomes. Plants have distinctive microbiomes that can provide important functions related to nutrition, defense, and stress tolerance. Empirical studies provide convincing evidence that in some—but not all—circumstances, belowground microbiomes help plants adapt to their local environment. The purpose of this review is to develop functional team selection (FTS) as a framework to help predict the conditions necessary for root microbiomes to generate local adaptation for their plant hosts. FTS envisions plants and their microbiomes as complex adaptive systems, and plant adaptations as emergent properties of these systems. If plants have the capacity to recognize and cultivate beneficial microbes and suppress pathogens, then it is possible for plants to evolve the capacity to gain adaptations by curating their microbiome. In resource-limited and stressful environments, the emergent functions of complex microbial systems may contribute to positive feedback linked to plant vigor, and ultimately, local adaptation. The key factors in this process are: (i) selective force, (ii) host constitution, (iii) microbial diversity, and (iv) time. There is increasing interest in harnessing beneficial microbial interactions in agriculture and many microbial growth-promoting products are commercially available, but their use is controversial because a large proportion of these products fail to consistently enhance plant growth. The FTS framework may help direct the development of durable plant-microbiome systems that enhance crop production and diminish pathogens. It may also provide valuable insights for understanding and managing other kinds of host-microbe systems.

https://academic.oup.com/ismej/article/19/1/wraf137/8182121?login=false

Landscape and crop diversity contributes to greater yield stability

Tobajas et al., 2025.

1. Maintaining stable agricultural production is a critical challenge for food security. Stable yields depend not only on climatic variables, but also on agricultural landscape management. While agricultural intensification can increase productivity in the short term, it often reduces long-term yield stability due to reduced crop diversity and the loss of semi-natural habitats.
2. This study investigates the relationships between landscape heterogeneity, climatic variables and temporal stability of crop yields across Spain. Using an extensive national dataset of productivity for 31 crops from 2013 to 2019, we analysed how landscape composition (crop richness, semi-natural habitat cover) and configuration (field size, edge density), along with climatic factors (precipitation, temperature, water deficit), influence yield stability.
3. Our results show that yield stability is influenced by climatic factors and landscape characteristics. Greater land-use heterogeneity and stable precipitation favour yield stability. Furthermore, moderate within-season precipitation concentrations also improved yield stability. We also detected interactive effects between crop pollinator dependence and landscape-level crop diversity and climate. Pollinator-dependent crops showed greater stability with increasing crop diversity and variable temperatures, while non-pollinator-dependent crops benefited from simpler crop areas and stable temperatures.
4. Synthesis and applications. These findings underscore the importance of promoting crop diversity and maintaining heterogeneous agricultural landscapes, particularly in pollinator-dependent crops. Promoting diverse agricultural landscapes with balanced heterogeneity can enhance the resilience of agricultural systems to climate change and contribute to long-term food security.

https://review.frontiersin.org/review/1569843/14/894232

Knepp Estate

Natural History Museum London

Sensitivity analysis for time varying ecological networks

Gonzalo Robledo

Exploring the importance of aromatic plants' extrafloral volatiles for pollinator attraction

Kantsa et al., 2025

Aromatic plants occur in many plant lineages and have widespread ethnobiological significance. Yet, the ecological significance and evolutionary origins of aromatic volatile emissions remain uncertain. Aromatic emissions have been implicated in defensive interactions but may also have other important functions. In this Viewpoint article, we propose an ecologically relevant definition for the aromatic phenotype and evaluate available evidence relating to the ecological role of aromatic emissions, focusing specifically on their role in pollinator attraction. We synthesize available literature addressing the use of extrafloral volatiles by pollinators, including evidence that aromatic plant emissions are primary foraging cues for some species, and present new behavioral findings documenting bee attraction to the aromatic lemon thyme in the absence of flowers. We highlight recent ecological research showing that aromatic species are highly influential in Mediterranean plant–pollinator communities and their emissions predict key interactions, particularly with bees. Based on the available evidence, we hypothesize that aromatic plants represent a form of chemical aposematism, wherein high levels of constitutive defense enable signaling phenotypes that convey information to both potential antagonists and mutualists. Finally, we outline future research priorities to clarify the role of aromatic emissions in information ecology and explore their application in agricultural systems.

https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.70496

Threats to conservation from artificial-intelligence-generated wildlife images and videos 

Guerrero-Casado et al., 2025

Cada vez son más frecuentes los videos de animales generados por IA ¿Cuáles son las consecuencias de esto? Este es precisamente en tema que se trabaja en el artículo. 

Resumen generado por IA del artículo:

Vínculo al articulo: 

https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cobi.70138

Vínculos a algunos videos de comportamientos animales generados por IA. Algunos claramente falsos, otros más engañosos:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQ8rZoGiLSo/?igsh=MXgwbWpjMTJzaHFxcg==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPo3oIIDsOn/?igsh=MWhvaXgyNms2N2dzbQ==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRIMz7xFhE0/?igsh=MTV1MGFnaTdueno4eA==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRHs-ulDRbD/?igsh=MXV3Mmw1d3JlanpqdA==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRC430-kQFH/?igsh=Z24yZ3kyMHl3bmd1

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQjlez9inh0/?igsh=MWU4NHBlMGFhOGV3

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPG8vQ1EpOx/?igsh=MXV6b2Y3OW1qeDR3bg==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DP1lkC4DRiP/?igsh=MXg0NDVnNGRvcXNzdA==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQjv_pYE-lm/?igsh=MWFydnZ4cHBhYjQ0dg==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQgZ5V9CWMv/?igsh=MWNha2Q4cnhjd3pwNA==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQ6T20Wijpf/?igsh=MXZvZnU0bTkxejg0ZQ==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQGTBBhjE-J/?igsh=b2ZobjJzcHpxNmZ6

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DP-AxJICC6m/?igsh=Y2g5eTI2cGYxb2Jm

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQw05CViMQE/?igsh=MTI1dGd6NmpsNDRqZg==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPyRrFCjMNH/?igsh=ZjFib3RjbHVma2Vh

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQ94EFEDlPe/?igsh=MTgyMWY2dWo5ZWt4bA==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRChYI0lVrG/?igsh=MXZ4MHlmOTQwZjFjdQ==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DP1UHr4k4aO/?igsh=MTlkN3B5bXp0NDR3dA==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQ7V2JTgSbi/?igsh=azU2aGpiN3k0aWJz

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRF07uajRzI/?igsh=MTllZXVvdXh0eXFhaw==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRARE25EjIj/?igsh=bG0wd3B6bGVvZDd3

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPbkwKoDJhx/?igsh=NTl0NXBwNWo4ajVi