PhD student at: 
Wageningen University & Research, Laboratory of Plant Physiology

Supervisors:
prof.dr.ing. Leonie Bentsink (WUR), Dr.ir. Rumyana Karlova (WUR), dr. Steven Groot (WUR) and dr. Mariana Silva Artur (WUR)

Overall aim:
The aim of this project is to study the influence of maternal environment, including soil type and habitat, on microbial communities of Arabidopsis thaliana seeds across different generations, and how these seed microbiome affect abiotic stress tolerance during seed germination and early seedling growth. The project will be focused on Arabidopsis thaliana and the stresses studied will be drought and salt.

Objectives:

• To study the influence of maternal environment, including soil type and habitat, on microbial communities of Arabidopsis thaliana seeds across different generations, and how these seed microbiome affect abiotic stress tolerance during seed germination and early seedling growth.

• To study the effect of VOCs produced by bacterial endophytes isolated from wild cabbage seeds on seed germination and seedling growth of Arabidopsis thaliana.

• To study techniques to introduce the selected beneficial microbiome isolated from wild cabbage seeds into non-host plant seeds, and whether it helps promote seed germination and seedling growth of non-host plants under abiotic stress conditions.

Expected Results:

• Seed microbial communities differ when the mother plants are grown on different environmental conditions, and some of these seed microbial taxa can be transmitted and inherited across generations.

• Abiotic stressors in the maternal environment encourages mother plants to recruit specific seed microbes and produce progeny seeds with microbiome adapted to the same stress that mother plants experiences, enabling the next generation seeds and seedlings to be more tolerance to theses stress conditions.

• VOCs released by bacterial isolates from wild cabbage seeds stimulate the germination of Arabidopsis seeds, even under stress conditions.

• Selected beneficial microbiome isolated from wild cabbage seeds can be introduced to non-host plants progeny seeds via various techniques such as bio-priming and flower dip inoculation, and seeds infected with selected beneficial bacteria promote seed and seedling vigor under stress conditions.