Investigating the Potential Role of Beneficial Bacteria in Big Sagebrush Restoration

Microbes play an essential role in plant ecology, supporting growth, pathogen protection, and drought tolerance. Big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), a foundational plant species, hosts a diverse microbial community, but the benefits of its leaf microbiome remain unclear. We conducted an experiment to determine if the bacterial species, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, may promote sagebrush growth and survival in a restoration setting. Seeds from Hillside to Hollow (HH) and Polecat Gulch (PC) were grown in a greenhouse, and once leaves emerged, the seedlings were randomly assigned to receive an inoculum containing B. amyloliquefaciens or a sterile water control. Before outplanting, we cultured microbes from internal and external leaf samples and counted colony-forming units (CFUs) for both site locations. This data was analyzed in R, where we created different plots and tested if there was a significant difference between the treatment versus the control. We found no significant difference in CFU numbers between the two groups and also no difference when specifically counting cultures appearing to be B. amyloliquefaciens, suggesting that inoculation did not lead to an overall difference in microbial abundance or specific enrichment of this bacterium. We are still actively monitoring the survival of the seedlings from this experiment at the different sites to see if there is an effect beyond these measures.