Integrated Phenotyping Reveals Trait-Specific Bacillus Modulation of Soybean Water-Deficit Responses
- 1State University of Maringá , , Av. Colombo, 5790 , , ,
- 2Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation , , Rodovia Carlos João Strass, s/n° , Distrito de Warta, , ,
- 3University of São Paulo , , Av. Pádua Dias, 11 , , ,
Abstract
Water deficit restricts soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) performance by reducing leaf expansion, water status, carbon assimilation, photosystem II activity, and leaf optical properties. Here, soybean plants were grown under four fixed irrigation volumes corresponding to 100, 50, 25, and 0% of the substrate field-capacity reference volume (W100, W50, W25, and W0), with or without rhizosphere-applied Bacillus subtilis + Bacillus amyloliquefaciens before water restriction. Plant growth, relative water content (RWC), thermal and VIS–NIR–SWIR optical traits, photosynthetic pigments, A–PPFD and A–Ci gas exchange, chlorophyll a fluorescence, OJIP transients, microscopy, and principal component analysis were integrated. Two-way ANOVA showed that water availability was the dominant source of variation, whereas Bacillus and water × Bacillus effects were trait dependent. Bacillus produced a severity-dependent phenotype, with the clearest whole-plant benefit under W50: leaf area increased from 526.3 ± 32.9 to 620.9 ± 45.3 cm2 plant–1 and total biomass from 5.63 ± 0.23 to 6.89 ± 0.28 g plant–1; total chlorophyll also increased by 63.2–93.5% across Bacillus-treated water regimes. However, A–PPFD-derived Amax declined from 13.66 ± 1.57 μmol CO2 m–2 s–1 under W100 to near-zero values under W0 and W0B. In contrast, A–Ci traits were more responsive: Vcmax increased by 106.9% in W100B and showed a 74.7% numerical, nonsignificant increase in W50B (p = 0.058), while W0B showed higher Fv/Fm relative to W0 under severe dehydration. PCA separated treatments across the first two components (51.79%) mainly along a drought-severity axis and secondarily by Bacillus-associated photochemical and structural shifts. These findings indicate that rhizosphere-applied Bacillus acts as a trait-specific modulator of soybean drought physiology, with growth benefits most evident under intermediate water restriction.
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BibTeX
@article{silva2026integrated,
title = {{Integrated Phenotyping Reveals Trait-Specific Bacillus Modulation of Soybean Water-Deficit Responses}},
author = {João Paulo Alves da Silva and Werner Camargos Antunes and Luis Guilherme Teixeira Crusiol and José Salvador Simoneti Foloni and José A. M. Demattê and Marcos Rafael Nanni and José Renato Bouças Farias and Renan Falcioni},
journal = {ACS Omega},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.1021/acsomega.6c09184},
url = {https://pubs.acs.org/acsodf/article/doi/10.1021/acsomega.6c09184/5464776/Integrated-Phenotyping-Reveals-Trait-Specific},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Integrated Phenotyping Reveals Trait-Specific Bacillus Modulation of Soybean Water-Deficit Responses
AU - João Paulo Alves da Silva
AU - Werner Camargos Antunes
AU - Luis Guilherme Teixeira Crusiol
AU - José Salvador Simoneti Foloni
AU - José A. M. Demattê
AU - Marcos Rafael Nanni
AU - José Renato Bouças Farias
AU - Renan Falcioni
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/05
JO - ACS Omega
DO - 10.1021/acsomega.6c09184
UR - https://pubs.acs.org/acsodf/article/doi/10.1021/acsomega.6c09184/5464776/Integrated-Phenotyping-Reveals-Trait-Specific
AB - Water deficit restricts soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) performance by reducing leaf expansion, water status, carbon assimilation, photosystem II activity, and leaf optical properties. Here, soybean plants were grown under four fixed irrigation volumes corresponding to 100, 50, 25, and 0% of the substrate field-capacity reference volume (W100, W50, W25, and W0), with or without rhizosphere-applied Bacillus subtilis + Bacillus amyloliquefaciens before water restriction. Plant growth, relative water content (RWC), thermal and VIS–NIR–SWIR optical traits, photosynthetic pigments, A–PPFD and A–Ci gas exchange, chlorophyll a fluorescence, OJIP transients, microscopy, and principal component analysis were integrated. Two-way ANOVA showed that water availability was the dominant source of variation, whereas Bacillus and water × Bacillus effects were trait dependent. Bacillus produced a severity-dependent phenotype, with the clearest whole-plant benefit under W50: leaf area increased from 526.3 ± 32.9 to 620.9 ± 45.3 cm2 plant–1 and total biomass from 5.63 ± 0.23 to 6.89 ± 0.28 g plant–1; total chlorophyll also increased by 63.2–93.5% across Bacillus-treated water regimes. However, A–PPFD-derived Amax declined from 13.66 ± 1.57 μmol CO2 m–2 s–1 under W100 to near-zero values under W0 and W0B. In contrast, A–Ci traits were more responsive: Vcmax increased by 106.9% in W100B and showed a 74.7% numerical, nonsignificant increase in W50B (p = 0.058), while W0B showed higher Fv/Fm relative to W0 under severe dehydration. PCA separated treatments across the first two components (51.79%) mainly along a drought-severity axis and secondarily by Bacillus-associated photochemical and structural shifts. These findings indicate that rhizosphere-applied Bacillus acts as a trait-specific modulator of soybean drought physiology, with growth benefits most evident under intermediate water restriction.
SN - 2470-1343
ER -