Bm. Duineveld et Ja. Van Veen, The number of bacteria in the rhizosphere during plant development: relating colony-forming units to different reference units, BIOL FERT S, 28(3), 1999, pp. 285-291
The number of bacteria was determined during the growth of chrysanthemum pl
ants on young (tip) and old (base) root parts. We assessed if the same conc
lusions could be drawn on the dynamics of bacterial populations during plan
t development when different reference units were used to express the bacte
rial counts. The results indicated that the total number of bacteria on the
base decreased significantly during plant development, when expressed per
root length, per root fresh weight or per root surface. The number of bacte
ria on the tip only decreased significantly when expressed per root length.
Using the unit of dry weight of adhering soil, contradictory results were
obtained for both base and tip; in general, the number of bacteria increase
d significantly during plant development. Thus, different reference units m
ay lead to different conclusions. Root surface seemed to be the best unit t
o use, but the use of this unit requires time-consuming measurements. Regre
ssion analyses indicated that the reference unit "root surface" was highly
correlated with root fresh weight (R-2=93%). Thus, once this relation is de
termined, the less time-consuming unit can be measured in the experimental
work. To analyse the data, the colony-forming units should be expressed per
root surface. Besides bacterial numbers during plant development, we asses
sed whether the bacterial populations collected showed different growth rat
es on agar plates. The growth rates of bacteria from the tip and base and d
ifferent development stages of the plants showed differences, indicating di
fferences in the metabolic state of the collected populations.