Europe PMC · 2026-05-10
X-ray CT scanning can reveal the hidden 3D structure of soil and plant roots without disturbing them, offering a new way to understand how soil architecture shapes the invisible battles and alliances between plants and soil microbes.
X-ray CT enables nondestructive, three-dimensional, time-resolved imaging of intact root-soil systems, allowing researchers to track plant-microbe interactions as they actually unfold in space and time.
Soil physical structure — pore networks, root channels, and micro-habitats — acts as a mechanistic driver of microbial behavior and plant immune responses, yet is rarely accounted for in current experimental designs.
The authors propose a 'digital rhizosphere' framework integrating X-ray CT structural data with molecular, microbiome, and computational modeling approaches to move plant-microbe research from description to prediction.