A global analysis of vineyard soil microbial diversity provides insights into the biogeographical patterns that characterize wine regions worldwide, capturing the microbial dimension of viticultural terroirs
Domingo, 06-03-2022
A global analysis of vineyard soil microbial diversity provides insights into the biogeographical patterns that characterize wine regions worldwide, capturing the microbial dimension of viticultural terroirs

The microbial biodiversity found in different vitivinicultural regions is an important determinant of wine terroir. It should be studied and preserved, although it may, in future, be subjected to manipulation by precision agriculture and oenology. Here, we conducted a global survey of vineyards’ soil microbial communities. We analysed soil samples from 200 vineyards on four continents to establish the basis for the development of a vineyard soil microbiome’s map, representing microbial biogeographical patterns on a global scale. This study describes vineyard microbial communities worldwide and establishes links between vineyard locations and microbial biodiversity on different scales: between continents, countries, and between different regions within the same country. Climate data correlates with fungal alpha diversity but not with prokaryotes alpha diversity, while spatial distance, on a global and national scale is the main variable explaining beta-diversity in fungal and prokaryotes communities. ProteobacteriaActinobacteria and Acidobacteria phylaand Archaea genus Nitrososphaera dominates prokaryotic communities in soil samples while the overall fungal community is dominated by genera Solicoccozyma, Mortierella and Alternaria. Finally, we used microbiome data to develop a predictive model, based on random forest analyses, to discriminate between microbial patterns and to predict the geographical source of the samples with reasonable precision.

This work, led by Alex Gobbi during his PhD, arise from the collaborative effort of University of Copenhaguen, University Complutense of Madrid and Biome Makers Inc.

Read the full paper (open access) in this link