Date palms are able to grow under diverse
abiotic stress conditions including in saline
soils, where
microbial communities may be help in the
plants
salinity tolerance. These
communities able to produce specific
growth promoting substances can enhance
date palm growth in a saline
environment. However, these
communities are poorly defined. In the
work reported here, the
date palm endophytic bacterial and
fungal communities were identified using the
pyrosequencing method, and the microbial differential abundance in the root upon exposure to
salinity stress was estimated. Approximately 150,061 reads were produced from the
analysis of six
ribosomal DNA libraries, which were prepared from endophytic microorganisms colonizing
date palm root
tissues.
DNA sequence analysis of these
libraries predicted the presence of a variety of bacterial and fungal endophytic species, some known and others unknown. The
microbial community compositions of 30% and 8% of the bacterial and fungal species, respectively, were significantly (p ≤ 0.05) altered in response to
salinity stress. Differential enrichment
analysis showed that microbe diversity indicated by the Chao, Shannon and Simpson indices were slightly reduced, however, the overall
microbial community structures were not significantly affected as a consequence of
salinity. This may reflect a buffering effect by the host
plant on the internal
environments that these
communities are colonizing. Some of the
endophytes identified in this study were
strains that were previously isolated from saline and marine
environments. This suggests possible interactions with the
plant that are favorable to
salinity tolerance in
date palm (AU)