Saline and Arid Soils: Impact on Bacteria, Plants, and their Interaction

Salinity and drought are the most important abiotic stresses hampering crop growth and yield. It has been estimated that arid areas cover between 41% and 45% of the total Earth area worldwide. At the same time, the world's population is going to soon reach 9 billion and the survival of this huge amount of people is dependent on agricultural products. Plants growing in saline/arid soil shows low germination rate, short roots, reduced shoot biomass, and serious impairment of photosynthetic efficiency, thus leading to a substantial loss of crop productivity, resulting in significant economic damage. However, plants should not be considered as single entities, but as a superorganism, or a holobiont, resulting from the intimate interactions occurring between the plant and the associated microbiota. Consequently, it is very complex to define how the plant responds to stress on the basis of the interaction with its associated plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB). This review provides an overview of the physiological mechanisms involved in plant survival in arid and saline soils and aims at describing the interactions occurring between plants and its bacteriome in such perturbed environments. The potential of PGPB in supporting plant survival and fitness in these environmental conditions has been discussed.