AFFILIATION : Mohammed VI Polytechnic University - Morocco
THEME : Improving Crop yield through Microbial Genomics
SUMMARY Seaweeds have been used as a source of natural fertilizer and biostimulant in agriculture for centuries. However, their effects on soil and crop roots microbiota remain unclear. Here, we used a commercially available Ascophyllum nodosum extract to test its effect on bacterial and fungal communities of rhizospheric soils and roots of pepper and tomato plants in greenhouse trials. Two independent trials were conducted in a split block design to test to effect of A. nodosum extract amendment. We used amplicon sequencing targeting fungal ITS and bacterial 16S rRNA gene to determine microbial community structure changes. We find that productivity parameters of root, shoot and fruit biomass were positively and significantly influenced by the amendment. In addition, a-diversity differed significantly between amended and control plants, but only in some of the experimental conditions. Species composition among sites (Beta-diversity) differed according to the amendment treatment in all four communities (fungal-root, fungal-soil, bacterial-root and bacterial-soil). Finally, we identified a number of candidate taxa most strongly correlated with crop yield increases. Further studies on isolation and characterization of these microbial taxa linked to the application of liquid seaweed extract may help to enhance crop yield in sustainable agro-ecosystems. BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Hijri obtained his BSc in 1994 in Cell Biology (option: Plant Science and Biotechnology), and his MSc in 1995 in Biochemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Burgundy (Dijon, France). His MSc research project was a study of the cytogenetics of the pea plant (Pisum sativum L.) by karyotyping and characterizing ribosomal DNA on pea chromosomes using Fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH). His MSc research was conducted at the INRA Dijon Centre under the supervision of Dr Mona Darmency. He obtained his PhD in Biochemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology (option: Molecular Genetics) at the University of Burgundy (Dijon, France) in 1999. His PhD project aimed to study the organization of the genetic polymorphism of the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Scutellospora castanea under the supervision of Prof. Hubert Dulieu at the INRA Dijon Centre. In 1999, Dr. Hijri joined the lab of Dr. Ian Sanders at the University of Basel (Switzerland) as a postdoctoral fellow and worked on molecular genetics and the evolution of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. He then moved with the Sanders Lab to the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) in 2000 and continued as a postdoctoral fellow until 2005. Dr. Hijri then joined the IRBV and the Département de Sciences Biologiques of the Université de Montréal in September 2005.