Functional Metagenomic Analysis of the Endophytes in Date Palms Exposed to Salinity

Soil salinity is a major agricultural problem worldwide, and is severely affecting date palms growing in Oman. Plants possess several strategies to cope with soil salinity. Among these strategies is the hosting of endophytic microbes. These microbes play an important role in salinity tolerance mechanisms in plants by producing an ethylene inhibitor molecule, and by enhancing the availability of some nutrients and phytohormones. The microbial communities in date palm roots have recently been identified?however, the entirety of their complete role in promoting plant growth under conditions of salinity is yet to be clarified. In this project, I aim to determine the function of the endophytic microbial communities growing in date palm roots by employing a culture-independent characterization strategy, through the identification of the coding genes and the assessment of their abundance in these communities. This can be achieved through the high-throughput next-generation sequencing methods. The information obtained from this project will yield a comprehensive understanding of the nature of the microbial communities, the physiological properties of their members, and their potential contribution toward salinity tolerance mechanisms in date palms; this will in turn facilitate our understanding of the salinity adaptation procedures in plants and will also enhance our efforts to efficiently culture those ?unculturable? microbes using the standard methods. The culturing of these microbes will help to formulate a microbial cocktail that can be used as an organic fertilizer for growth promotion and salt stress alleviation in date palms.