Microbiome structure of wild banana rhizosphere soils with potential to suppress Fusarium wilt pathogen

The banana rhizosphere harbors important biological control agents and complex microbial communities. Increasing evidence underscores these locales as prominent sites for isolating numerous biocontrol agents. However, information about the structure and functional profile of the wild banana rhizosphere microbiome in the natural ecosystem is limited. In this study, we screen rhizosphere soils of banana growing in forested and semi-forested areas for suppressive activity against Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense. The taxonomic analysis showed that Pseudomonadota was the dominant phylum in potentially Foc-suppressive soil (PSS) and potentially Foc-nonsuppressive soil (PnSS), representing 56.95% and 72.42% of the total bacterial community, respectively. Actinomycetota (33.48%), Myxococcota (2.48%), Acidobacteriota (1.34%), and Bacteroidota (1.08%) were more abundant in the PSS. At the genus level, Bradyrhizobium (13.05%) and Lysobacter (9.09%), while at the species level, unclassified (6.27%) and Lysobacter sp. KIS68-7 (2.20%) were dominant in the PSS sample. Functional predictions using KEGG Orthology (KO) at levels 2 and 3 showed KOs associated with protein families (genetic information processing) and transporters, respectively, were the most abundant categories in the PSS. These results provide a preliminary snapshot of the dominant microbial taxa associated with the soils from the native habitats of wild banana rhizosphere, exhibiting Foc-suppressive activity and Foc-nonsuppressive activity in vitro under laboratory conditions.