The seed microbiota from an application perspective: an underexplored frontier in plant-microbe interactions

Seed-associated microbiota represent a critical yet underexplored frontier in plant-microbe interactions, offering unique insights into plant health, resilience, and development. Unlike the soil or rhizosphere microbiome, the seed microbiota is closely tied to plant reproduction, facilitating both vertical and horizontal transmission of microbes. These microbial communities influence key plant processes, including germination, stress tolerance, nutrient acquisition, and pathogen resistance, providing plants with a pre-assembled microbial consortium tailored to their needs. Despite recent advances, significant gaps remain in understanding how seed-associated microbes are acquired, their ecological dynamics, and their functional roles. High-throughput sequencing, metagenomics, and spatial imaging techniques have revealed the diversity and complexity of the seed microbiota, emphasizing their potential for agricultural innovation. This research highlights the importance of these communities in shaping plant resilience and productivity, yet questions about their ecological and evolutionary significance persist. The present review synthesizes current knowledge on the composition, inheritance mechanisms, and functional roles of the seed microbiota. It also explores strategies to harness these microbes for sustainable agriculture, including microbiome engineering and breeding for microbial compatibility. By addressing these gaps, seed microbiota research could revolutionize sustainable agriculture, enhancing crop resilience and reducing reliance on chemical inputs.