While Mueller’s research has traditionally centered on understanding the phenotypic effects of microbiome selection on plants, it was a suggestion from Caio Guilherme Pereira, a research associate in the Juenger Lab, that led to the recent investigation of mechanisms underlying sodium and aluminum stress in plants.
“Salt and drought are the big stresses in human agriculture,” Mueller said, explaining that salt stress is particularly relevant due to climate change.
As farmers water their fields, salt from the water accumulates in soil. Unless the salt gets washed out by rain, the salt concentration in the ground increases, hurting plant growth. As the climate becomes warmer due to climate change, plants require more irrigation, thus increasing the salt concentration of soil.
While the environmental stability required for microbiome breeding limits its large-scale agricultural applications, Mueller explained that scientists can use this technique to find promising microbes. In his team’s recent paper, the researchers identified three microbes that are most likely to be the ones that confer salt tolerance.
“The next thing is to isolate those microbes and test those with plants and see whether a single microbe that you inoculate onto a plant can confer that tolerance,” Mueller said.
Earlier this century, when Mueller began research in the field, microbiome selection was still a nascent field. Over the past 15 years, Mueller has seen microbiome selection burgeoning, as new theories have sprouted about which microbes provide benefits and the mechanisms through which they do so.
In the next decade, Mueller believes the study of microbiome breeding will continue to grow, blurring the line between evolution and ecology.
“Since 2015, when we published the first review paper, a lot of people have moved into this research area,” Mueller said. “It’s really great to see that out of nothing, this new research area came about.”
