INRS
Ph.D. candidate
Supervisor: Etienne Yergeau
Marc St-Arnaud
Start: 2016-05-02
End: 2020-04-18

Project

Engineering wheat rhizosphere microbiome to increase its capacity to assimilate Nitrogen
Wheat (Triticum aestivum) remains Canada's largest and most exported crop. For more than 100 years, Canadian scientists have worked to develop cultivars adapted to the Canadian environment, without considering the microorganisms associated with the plant. It is well known that microorganisms associated with plants can promote their growth, increase their resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses and increase their ability to assimilate essential nutrients. Therefore, this research project uses wheat as a plant model, in order to deepen our understanding of the interactions between wheat and the microbiome from its rhizosphere, using approaches such as metagenomic analysis, exudation patterns, and the use of molecular biology tools. This project also aims to generate new "rhizosphere engineering" methods, a technique that aims at modifying the microbiome from the rhizosphere to promote beneficial microbial taxa, as well as their functions and activities as the microbial communities in the soil, are a rich source of functional diversity.

Keywords

Microbiome, rhizosphere, Wheat, Metagenomic, biotic interactions, nitrogen, Nutrient acquisition, functional traits

Publications

1- Harnessing phytomicrobiome signaling for rhizosphere microbiome engineering
Quiza, Liliana, Marc St-Arnaud, Etienne Yergeau
2015 Frontiers in Plant Science

2- Soil carbon content and relative abundance of high affinity H2-oxidizing bacteria predict atmospheric H2 soil uptake activity better than soil microbial community composition
Khdhiri, Mondher, Laura Hesse, Maria Elena Popa, Liliana Quiza, Isabelle Lalonde, Laura K. Meredith, Thomas Röckmann, Philippe Constant
2015 Soil Biology and Biochemistry

3- Land-use influences the distribution and activity of high affinity CO-oxidizing bacteria associated to type I-coxL genotype in soil
Quiza, Liliana, Isabelle Lalonde, Claude Guertin, Philippe Constant
2014 Frontiers in Microbiology

4- Towards the development of multifunctional molecular indicators combining soil biogeochemical and microbiological variables to predict the ecological integrity of silvicultural practices
Peck, Vincent, Liliana Quiza, Jean-Philippe Buffet, Mondher Khdhiri, Audrey-Anne Durand, Alain Paquette, Nelson Thiffault, Christian Messier, Nadyre Beaulieu, Claude Guertin, Philippe Constant
2016 Microbial Biotechnology