Evaluación de la potencial actividad benéfica del rizobioma de banano sobre la sanidad del cultivo en plantaciones de El Oro

Abstract

CONDITION FOR PUBLICATION OF PROJECT. The rhizospheric microbiome of banana plays key roles in promoting plant growth and suppressing soil-borne diseases. This study proposes to analyze the functional and taxonomic diversity of the microbiome in rhizospheric soils from ten banana farms located in the province of El Oro, Ecuador, considering two phenological stages of the plant. The approach is based on shotgun metagenomics, complemented with functional annotations (eggNOG), redundancy analysis (RDA), and the construction of functional and correlation networks in relation to the plant's health status. In addition to generating metagenomic data associated with the banana rhizosphere microbiome, the study aims to identify plant growth-promoting genes (PGPG), such as glnA, phoD, acdS, and ipdC, distributed across multiple taxa. It is also expected to identify specific microbial taxa whose presence or abundance correlates with the incidence of Dickeya dadantii and Pectobacterium carotovorum, which could suggest a protective role of the microbiome. These organisms could represent candidates for future biocontrol or biofertilization strategies. Keywords: rhizosphere, metagenomics, KEGG, PGPG, suppressiveness.