Our global standardised field survey provides the first joint assessment of the soil core microbiome − bacterial, fungal, protist and invertebrate communities − and edaphoclimatic components of 10 CWPs, investigated across six of the more ancient and relevant crop domestication centres. The wild populations of our CWPs clustered into four ecoregions that differed widely in their edaphoclimatic attributes, ranging from deserts to tropical seasonal forests and savannas. These ecoregions showed substantial differences in terms of climate, soil texture, soil fertility, soil pH and carbon storage potential. We found that the soil core microbiome common to all CWPs were dominated by the major soil phyla commonly found in studies surveying soil ecosystems worldwide. Despite this commonality, we also found distinct ecological groups of soil core phylotypes that showed variation in their prevalence across ecoregions, driven by varying environmental preferences among kingdoms. These biogeographical patterns of the soil core microbiome point to changes in their life history strategies, showing increased proportional abundances of acidophilic bacteria, as well as fungal and protist parasites in the tropical seasonal forest and savanna ecoregion. Intriguingly, wild populations created specific microhabitats within ecoregions that played a selective role in the assembly of the soil core microbiome. Hence, wild populations within CWP species and ecoregions should be considered a priority for the conservation of the specific co-evolutionary relationships between CWPs and their associated microbiome.
Our biogeographical survey encompassed 125 populations of CWPs at the centres of origin of the 10 major crops in terms of yield and cultivated area (Fig. 1). The wild populations were distributed across all Whittaker biomes except cold and high-precipitation temperate systems (Fig. 2a). The CWPs distributed across four different ecoregions based on climate, primary productivity, and soil properties (Fig. 2c, d; Figure S2): 1) deserts, 2) coastal xeric shrublands, 3) temperate dry forests and shrublands (including dry savanna), and 4) tropical seasonal forests and savannas. The desert ecoregion encompassed the wild populations of barley and wheat from the Fertile Crescent (Israel and Iran 24), and some populations of sunflower from North America (USA 25) and soya from China 26. These populations thrived in arid and semi-arid grasslands with mild temperatures and alkaline soils, where rainfall constraint primary productivity and contributes to higher accumulation of total soil micronutrients compared to other ecoregions (Tables S1 and S2). The tropical seasonal forest and savanna ecoregion comprised the wild progenitors of the little millet from the Indomalaya region (India 27) and rice from the Yangtze and Yellow River valleys (China 28), as well as a few of the populations of wild soya. Populations in this ecoregion are found in warm and high-moisture environments, such as forests and wetlands, with acidic soils due to the high rainfall and accumulation of soil organic carbon and inorganic nitrogen. The temperate dry forests and shrublands ecoregion agglutinated the centres of origin of maize and beans from Mesoamerica (Mexico 29,30), potato from the Central Andes (Bolivia 31), and several wild sunflower populations. The temperate ecoregion was climatically intermediate, presented higher soil concentrations of total phosphorus, but overall lower fertility. Finally, the coastal xeric shrubland ecoregion encompassed the wild cotton populations from the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico 32), which experienced the warmest temperatures, the lowest micronutrient concentrations, and the sandiest and saltiest soils. A majority of all CWP populations thrived in drylands with low primary productivity (73% with Aridity Index < 0.65, 53% with Mean NDVI < 0.4, Fig. 2b).
Our characterization of the ecoregions of provenance of CWPs provides a quantitative edaphoclimatic basis to the evolutionary origins of domesticated crops 24,26–32. Our results show that wild populations are not exclusively circumscribed to marginal environments with unfavourable or harsh conditions, as has often been suggested 3. Indeed, the native edaphoclimatic niche of CWPs relies on two key ordination dimensions that are relevant for agriculture. For instance, certain ecoregions exhibit greater soil sand content and overall low micronutrient concentrations, while others thrive in more fertile soils, yet they vary significantly in terms of aridity, soil pH, and carbon storage potential. These unique edaphoclimatic conditions of ecoregions are likely to exert different selective pressures, resulting in specific soil microbiome assemblages and functions 13,33. Despite the importance of the different edaphoclimatic origins of CWPs for soil biodiversity and plant-microbiome interactions, no previous research has defined the edaphoclimatic niche across the wild progenitors of major crops 9,10,19,34. Linking the ecoregions of CWPs with their associated soil microbiome will help to evaluate the domestication and cultivation impacts on crop microbiome composition and guide microbial-assisted agriculture.
The core phylotypes (i.e., zOTUs) of the soil biotic communities of ancestral agriculture accounted for a small portion of the total richness (5–10% of the total number of phylotypes), although these phylotypes dominated in abundance (45–74% of the total number of reads, Fig. 3a). This is in line with previous reports on the global distributions of soil organisms 35–39. After the assignment of the soil core members that encompassed dominant genera of ecological and agricultural relevance (Figure S4-S7), we identified modules of co-occurrent phylotypes for the four kingdoms (Fig. 3b, Table S3). Although the centres of origin may represent a biogeographically biased sample of soils worldwide, our findings regarding the most prevalent and ubiquitous biotic phyla in CWP soils aligns with global surveys (Fig. 3c). Thus, soil bacteria were dominated by Proteobacteria and Actinobacteriota, fungi by Ascomycota, protists by Cercozoa and Ciliophora, and invertebrates by nematodes, as in soil ecosystems around the world 35–39. Several reasons could explain this resemblance. First, these phyla are cosmopolitan and include members with diverse dispersal abilities, functionalities, and trophic metabolisms that allow them to reach and adapt to diverse ecological niches 35–39. Moreover, the CWPs were distributed over a wide variety of edaphoclimatic ecoregions, which rules out the existence of a soil microbiome specialised for a very restricted or extreme set of environmental attributes. Despite the extensive dominance of these phyla in the soil core microbiome of CWPs, their effects on host plant and soil functioning may vary due to differences in environmental preferences at finer taxonomic levels, as explained below 35.
The proportion of nodes in each module of the co-occurrence networks in the four biotic groups exhibited overlap across ecoregions (Fig. 4). All kingdoms had a predominant module in the desert ecoregion (accounting for 55 to 72% of total phylotypes, i.e., module completeness). The remaining ecoregions were dominated by a second major module (34–62%), except for the bacterial group, in which desert and temperate ecoregions share the same dominant module. These biogeographical patterns in soil communities may reflect interactions between soil taxa and plants or overlapping environmental preferences 38,40. In the desert ecoregion the soil core microbiome presented higher proportions of Actinobacteriota; terrestrial fungi from the Basidiomycota phylum; predatory and decomposer soil protists such as Amoebozoa and Ciliophora, and phototrophic protists such as Ochrophyta; as well as soil invertebrates acting as detritivores and predators such as Annelida, Rotifera, and Tardigrada (Fig. 3c and Fig. 4). Knowing the microbiome patterns of the desert ecoregion, where CWPs thrive, can be essential to address one of the most important challenges in dryland agriculture, namely climate change and land degradation 41. We should explore the functional properties of these soil microbes and how they modify plant evolutionary responses that ameliorate plant drought stress 17. The application of the adapted soil microbiome is particularly urgent in low-income world regions where crops grow far from their climate optima and in areas expected to surpass aridity thresholds compromising functional and structural attributes of agroecosystems 42,43. In contrast, the soil microbiome in tropical and temperate ecoregions exhibited greater abundances of Proteobacteria, Verrucomicrobiota, Acidobacteriota and Gemmatimonadota phyla, and other bacteria with predatory behaviour such as Myxococcota; terrestrial saprophytic fungi belonging to Mortierellomycota phylum; invertebrate parasitic protists such as Labyrinthulomycetes, Apicomplexa and kinetoplastids from the Euglenozoa phylum, along with recognized phototrophs such as Chlorophyta; as well as soil-dwelling invertebrates such as Nematodes and Arthropoda (Fig. 3c and Fig. 4). Our results showing increased abundances of fungal and parasites in soil communities from tropical compared to dryland ecoregions, can be attributed to several factors such as the higher temperature and moisture levels, a wider variety of host species, and the longer transmission seasons 38 (Table S1, Figure S8). Overall, these compositional differences in the soil phylotypes pool across ecoregions could distinctly influence the recruitment and colonisation mechanisms of CWPs for a specific endophytic biota. These variations in soil microbial communities can have far-reaching effects on soil functioning, host phenotype and performance 13,15,44.
We assessed the factors that determine variations in the abundances of the ecological modules within the soil core microbiome of CWPs (Fig. 5). Soil pH was the main driver of the bacterial modules, along with soil salinity and several micronutrients. This suggests that certain bacterial taxa abundant in the tropical and coastal shrubland ecoregions are selected for tolerance to acidic soils (e.g., Acidobacteriota, and Proteobacteria of the Xanthomonadaceae and Burkholderiaceae families) and salinity (e.g., Gammaproteobacteria of the family Alteromonadaceae and Bacteroidota of the families Flavobacteriaceae and Rhodothermaceae) 37,45. Fungal modules were mainly influenced by sand content, zinc concentration, primary productivity and aridity. Our results confirm that soil-dwelling fungi are more influenced by vegetation and climate factors, while the impact of edaphic characteristics is less relevant 35,36. These different environmental preferences among fungal modules may be related with variations in fungal functional groups 35,46. For instance, there was less diversity of fungal parasites, but higher of saprophytic fungi, in areas with higher aridity and lower productivity (Figure S8). Soil protists are distributed as a function of mean annual temperature and, to a lesser extent, soil pH. This indicates differences in the dominant mode of energy acquisition by soil protist communities 38, with increasing temperatures and lower pH favouring greater proportions of parasites (e.g., Labyrinthulomycetes, Apicomplexa and kinetoplastids) in detriment of other free living heterotrophs (e.g., Amoebozoa and Cercozoa). Soil invertebrates were influenced by a higher number of environmental predictors, likely due to complex interactions among trophic levels 40. Our results are consistent with those of Bastida et al. (2020) indicating climate, including its seasonal and daily variability, and vegetation productivity as main drivers of soil invertebrate communities. Taken together, we found that the sets of environmental factors shaping the soil microbiome of CWPs varied among kingdoms, which provides a deeper understanding of the complexity of community-level assembly in native soil environments 3,44.
Interestingly, the identity of CWPs was the major source of variation among ecological modules of the soil core microbiome (i.e., random effects in the models). This result suggests that interactions between plant hosts and the soil microbiome shape module abundances at the local scale 47,48, where the active selection of distinct soil microbiomes takes place (Figure S3) 49. These selection processes could potentially be triggered by plant phenotypes, or these host phenotypes could be the consequence of plant-independent ecological interactions within the native soil microbiome that do not occur in agricultural systems 13,33. Hence, distinct wild populations within ecoregions are potential reservoirs of the co-evolutionary relationships between CWPs and soil organisms 2,8,13.
Our study provides a biogeographical baseline for reinstating beneficial ancestral microbes and biotic interactions within the rewilding framework of modern agriculture 7,13. This work highlights the conservation value of individual CWP populations, since the ancestral co-evolutionary relationships between CWPs and soil organisms might drive specific plant-soil feedbacks and specific responses to biotic and abiotic stressors. For instance, some authors have demonstrated the role of Bacillus sp. as mitigators of water stress in soybean by increasing abscisic acid, modifying root architecture, and reaching increased photosynthesis and radiation use efficiency in plants 50–52. We argue that the higher presence of Bacillus sp. in soils of the desert ecoregion would help mitigate water stress of wild soya populations compared to those inhabiting tropical ecoregions, which exhibit lower abundance of Bacillus sp and less arid climate. Our results are meaningful to guide soil microbial inoculation since we decipher the environmental conditions that can promote particular modules of the ancestral core microbiome 53. This knowledge will allow the use of specific microbial inoculants adapted to local conditions ensuring their environmental persistence 53,54. Likewise, we can use microbiome-environment correlates to infer the potential impacts of different agricultural practices on targeted soil microbial phylotypes. Among the soil biodiversity, bacteria are prone to be influenced by the soil chemical legacy or rapid changes in pH and micronutrients. Protists, fungi and invertebrates might be more susceptible to changes in climate and productivity associated with the expansion of the geographical ranges of crops, with different watering programs, and with shifts in soil texture and the set of cultivated species. The current political and economic context seems adequate to harness the potential of the soil microbiome of ancestral agriculture, as the industry of agricultural microbial products is increasing at a global annual rate of 17% 5, and recent research has identified global hotspots for soil biodiversity conservation 23.
In summary, we found that the populations of CWPs were distributed across widely diverse edaphoclimatic conditions that clustered into four ecoregions. The temperate dry forest and shrubland ecoregion and the coastal xeric shrubland ecoregion had sandier soils and lower micronutrient concentrations. In contrast, the desert and tropical seasonal forest and savanna ecoregions generally feature more fertile soils, although they differed significantly in terms of aridity, soil pH, and carbon storage potential. We described the taxonomic structure of soil core microbes and micro-fauna with Proteobacteria, Actinobacteriota, Ascomycota, Cercozoa, Ciliophora and Nematoda as dominant phyla. Further, we identified ecological modules for the four kingdoms of the soil core community, which exhibited distinct taxonomical profiles and also different abundance patterns across ecoregions. The different assemblages across ecoregions could indicate shifts in the life strategies and functional traits of soil communities. For instance, our analyses indicated that soils from tropical regions harboured greater proportions of acidophilic bacteria, as well as fungal and protist parasites, whereas deserts harboured higher abundances of saprophytic fungi and heterotrophic protists. Most importantly, our results suggest that the individual populations of CWPs host unique and diverse soil microbiomes, and thus potentially different microbial functions. This highlights the wild populations as the conservation unit for the preservation of eco-evolutionary relationships between CWPs and their associated microbiome. Our work lays the groundwork for the rewilding of plant-associated biota in agricultural systems.