Graduate Student Brigham Young University Alpine, Utah
Body of Abstract: Chenopodium quinoa Willd., commonly called “quinoa”, is a domesticated staple pseudo-cereal crop native to the Andes region of South America in countries including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru (Jarvis et al., 2017). Quinoa is considered an “orphaned crop”— a crop that is not grown and produced on an international scale but plays an important role in regional food security. Bacteria that colonize quinoa plants play important roles in determining the health and growth of the plant as well as contributing to the development of robust nutritional value of the seeds. It is especially important to understand the effect of nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium on bacterial community composition in quinoa because as an “orphaned crop”, quinoa grows in regions where the land is nutrient-poor and depleted of essential nutrients for plant growth. In this study, we evaluate the effect of nitrogen-, phosphorus-, and potassium-enriched hydroponics solution on the microbial community diversity and composition of young root tissue in C. quinoa. These foundational macronutrients are vital to healthy growth and development of plants and contribute to shaping the microenvironment in which plant growth-promoting bacteria can colonize and participate in symbioses with their host. Previous work has established that plant growth-promoting bacteria can enhance plant growth through utilization of nutrients in processes like nitrogen fixation, solubilizing nutrients to increase their availability to the plant host, bioremediation, and antipathogenic responses (Souza et al., 2015). Our analyses revealed that both alpha and beta diversity varied significantly across all nutrient treatment groups, and we identified 15 differentially abundant taxa across nutrient groups and contextualized their functionalities and interactions with nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium macronutrients. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that the enrichment of these macronutrients in hydroponic solution influences the composition of microbial communities in the roots of young quinoa plants.