DOI
10.3389/fmicb.2020.00132

Summary
In this publication the researchers characterized the influence of wheat on the microbiota of the roots and surrounding soil. The study was conducted with newly isolated lines of bread wheat obtained by hybridizing diploid (Aegilops tauschii) with tetraploid triticum durum and crossed it with a modern cultivar of Triticum aestivum. The newly created, synthetic hybrid wheat was found to support a microbiome enriched in beneficial Glomeromycetes fungi, but also in, potentially detrimental, Nematoda. In addition to other results the authors cocluded that wheat species, despite sharing a vast core microbiota, do select for specific prokaryotic and eukaryotic taxa, however, none of the wheat lines analyzed significantly modified the ratio between eukaryotes and prokaryotes in their microbiota.

Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
In this study it was observed that, despite differences in their soil microbiota communities, the wheat plants consistently show a low ratio of eukaryotes to prokaryotes. Based on this observation, the authors hypothesized that this is a mechanism for protection against soil-borne fungal disease and appears to be deeply rooted in the wheat genome. They also suggested that the influence of plants on the composition of their associated microbiota is an integral factor, overlooked so far , but intrinsic to selection during wheat domestication.

Point of Strength
The interaction between microbes is an exceptionally complex system. The further interaction of this system with plants is a further level of complexity, that flows in the third more complex level of environmental interaction. This paper is an example of how biological complexity is stacked at various levels of increasing complexity.