FIGURE 1.

Members of a SynCom promote plant growth and show distinct colonization patterns when inoculated in maize plants. (A) Four-week-old maize plants’ growth in the absence (left) or presence (right) of the SynCom constituted by the 17 community-based isolates of the sugarcane community-based culture collection and (B) its beneficial effect in root and shoot fresh and dry weight. (C) Microbial composition and relative abundances of the 17 community-based isolates in inoculated maize plants. The panel shows, from left to right, the taxonomic classification; ID; number of strains (NS); and relative abundance in the rhizosphere, endophytic root, and exophytic stem for each community-isolate. A family-level classification is shown and those considered as robust colonizers are highlighted in bold. Scale bar: 10 cm. Fresh and dry weight of inoculated and uninoculated plants were compared using Student’s t-test (^∗∗p-value ≤ 0.01; ^∗∗∗p-value ≤ 0.001). Colonization was determined by difference in relative abundance of OTUs in inoculated and uninoculated plants using FDR-corrected Kruskal–Wallis test (P < 0.05). Sphingob., Sphingobacteriaceae; Enterobact., Enterobacteriaceae.