PubMed · 2026-06-25
Wheat plants grown in simulated microgravity have weaker protective microbial communities in their roots, making them more vulnerable to fungal infection than plants grown under normal gravity. Specific soil bacteria — particularly Paenibacillus — appear to be key to maintaining that protective network.
Simulated microgravity caused fungal infection to disrupt bacterial-bacterial and bacterial-fungal root networks more severely than the same infection under normal gravity.
Bacterial network stability — not fungal network stability — was the strongest predictor of plant growth performance, including hormone levels like jasmonic acid and cytokinins.
Random forest modeling identified Paenibacillus and Microbacteriaceae-related bacteria as the key taxa predicting network stability under these conditions.
