Abstract
Recent studies have revealed that some bacteria can inhabit plant seeds, and they are likely founders of the bacterial community in the rhizosphere of or inside plants at the early developmental stage. Given that the seedling establishment is a critical fitness component of weedy plant species, the effects of seed endophytic bacteria (SEB) on the seedling performance are of particular interest in weed ecology. Here, we characterized the SEB in natural populations of Capsella bursa-pastoris, a model species of weed ecology. The composition of endophytic bacterial community was evaluated using deep sequencing of a 16S rDNA gene fragment. Additionally, we isolated bacterial strains from seeds and examined their plant growth-promoting traits. Actinobacteria, Firmicutes, Alpha-, and Gammaproteobacteria were major bacterial phyla inside seeds. C. bursa-pastoris natural populations exhibited variable seed microbiome such that the proportion of Actinobacteria and Alphaproteobacteria differed among populations, and 60 out of 82 OTUs occurred only in a single population. Thirteen cultivable bacterial species in six genera (Bacillus, Rhodococcus, Streptomyces, Staphylococcus, Paenibacillus, Pseudomonas) were isolated, and none of them except Staphylococcus haemolyticus were previously reported as seed endophytes. Eight isolates exhibited plant growth-promoting traits like phosphate solubilization activity, indole-3-acetic acid, or siderophore production. Despite the differences in the bacterial communities among plant populations, at least one isolated strain from each population stimulated shoot growth of either C. bursa-pastoris or its close relative A. thaliana when grown with plants in the same media. These results suggest that a weedy plant species, C. bursa-pastoris, contains bacterial endophytes inside their seeds, stimulating seedling growth and thereby potentially affecting seedling establishment.