Rhizosphere microbiome plays a crucial role in enhancing the ability of plants to adapt to various environmental stress conditions, especially in ecosystems facing rapid climatic shifts, where soil and water availability influence both plant growth and microbial assembly. Brachypodium spp., a model species for cereal crops such as wheat, naturally occurs in hyper-arid to humid habitats and may possess adaptive strategies mediated through its rhizosphere microbiome. In this study, we investigated the rhizosphere bacterial communities of Brachypodium spp. across a precipitation gradient in Israel and established a bacterial culture collection from Brachypodium spp. rhizosphere. Here we performed 16S r RNA amplicon sequencing of the rhizosphere microbiome of Brachypodium ecotypes naturally growing (NP) in seven locations with different precipitation levels and from twelve Brachypodium ecotypes growing in an agricultural soil in a common garden experiment (CGP), for which seeds were originally collected from 12 locations with different precipitation records. Our results revealed that Actinobacteriota and Proteobacteria were the most abundant bacteria phyla across both collections. Interestingly, the CGP plants grown under controlled uniform conditions exerted a similar pattern of microbial diversity as plants from the NP collection, collected from similar geographic origin. This may indicate plant environmental memory, wherein a plant’s previous environmental conditions explain its rhizosphere microbiome composition. Together, these findings underscore the importance of environmental memory in plants and offers a promising strategy for climate-smart agriculture by enhancing crop resilience through plant legacy responses to past environmental stresses.
