ArticleAnnals of botany2025
Locating the microbes along the maize root system under nitrogen limitation: a root phenotypic approach.
Article in Annals of botany, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Integrating soil imaging with spatial omics to uncover root-soil interactions.Plant communications · 2026Review
- Digging for meaningful connections: associations between root phenotypes and rhizosphere microbial diversity in maize.Plant and soil · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundA major challenge in agriculture is the low nitrogen (N) uptake efficiency of crops, which poses environmental and economic costs. Root adaptive architectural and anatomical phenotypes in synergy with root microbes could be a promising approach to improve plant N uptake. However, little is known about such synergies. Here, we aimed to characterize the spatial distribution of the root prokaryotes of maize (Zea mays) under low N in 30-L mesocosms, where root architecture and anatomy are freely expressed, searching for correlations between prokaryotic genus abundance and ten phenotypes.
methodsWe studied the root prokaryotic community of 4-week-old plants growing in 30-L mesocosms under low N using two sandy soil mixtures. We collected root, rhizosphere and bulk soil samples at various locations, including depths (0-20, 20-70, 70-150 cm), root classes (lateral and axial) and root types (seminal and crown). We measured plant growth response to low N availability and performed 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding on extracted DNA. KEY
resultsSampling location was the third most important factor after soil mixture and compartment, explaining ∼5 % of the variance in root prokaryotic diversity. Seminal roots (0-20 cm depth), shallow crown roots (0-20 cm) and deep crown roots (20-150 cm) showed well-separated root microbial communities. Lateral root branching density (LRBD) explained 10 % of this variance in the rhizosphere and the root tissue. We identified prokaryotic genera specific to depth, soil-root compartment, root class and type under LN. Moreover, architectural phenotypes LRBD and lateral root length significantly correlated with the abundance of 37 genera.
conclusionsWe highlight the importance of sampling location and architectural traits that may be associated with the microbial cycling of soil N. The exploration of synergies between root traits and microbes that participate in the N cycle has the potential to increase sustainability in agriculture.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.