Functional capacities drive recruitment of bacteria into plant root microbiota.

Functional diversity of bacteria predicts their recruitment into plant root microbiomes across different host species and environments.

• Why it matters: Understanding how bacterial functions influence microbiome assembly can improve prediction and engineering of beneficial plant-associated communities, addressing variability across hosts and conditions.
• What they did: The study used a systems-level, genome-to-function approach with isolates from Arabidopsis, barley, and Lotus grown in soil, identifying 266 functions enriched in all root microbiomes.
• The result: A core functional signature was found, with isolates possessing broad, distinct functions within their families being more abundant, enabling microbiome engineering for agriculture.