holobiont

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The rhizosphere microbiome as a decentralized immune system.

PubMed · 2026-03-31

Scientists propose that the community of microbes living in a plant's root zone acts like a distributed immune system — one that can adapt and even 'remember' past threats, extending plant defenses far beyond what the plant's own genes can do alone.

The rhizosphere microbiome may provide adaptive, memory-like immune functions that go beyond what the plant's own genome encodes.

Plant immunity is reframed as an emergent property arising from plant-microbiome interactions rather than from the plant alone.

The authors propose viewing the plant and its root microbiome together as an integrated 'holobiont' — a single functional unit for defense purposes.

holobiont

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