TY - JOUR TI - Preparing for battle DO - https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3J67K2Q PY - 2016 AB - Drought is an issue that is prevalent in our world today, becoming an unavoidable constraint to crop productivity imperiling agricultural-based economies and food availability. Therefore, the development of environmentally-friendly and sustainable approaches to ameliorate the damage caused by drought is of primary importance. Soil-dwelling microorganisms found in the rhizosphere of a plant play prominent roles in the livelihood and fitness of plants, therefore possibly aiding plants in battling abiotic stress. In efforts to establish the role of rhizobacteria in the priming of plants for drought stress, we studied the effect of the leguminous-associating Bradyrhizobium japonicum and multi-host associating Bacillus amyloliquefaciens on the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana with a focus on parameters spanning their physiological and development differences attributing to better plant fitness in drought conditions. The data presented demonstrates that the presence of these rhizobacteria in the rhizosphere of the plants have significant effects on their germination rate, root architecture, biomass, reproduction, rate of water loss and soil moisture retention in A. thaliana, in comparison to the untreated control. The effect of these rhizobacterial species on A. thaliana establish an avenue for the development of environmentally-friendly and sustainable agricultural applications, utilizing interactions that occur in nature to promote plant growth and protect against abiotic stresses. KW - Biology KW - Plants--Effect of drought on KW - Plants--Effect of stress on KW - Rhizobacteria LA - eng ER -