Article
Biology
Janina M. C. Diehl, Vienna Kowallik, Alexander Keller, Peter H. W. Biedermann
Summary: This study experimentally demonstrated that fruit-tree pinhole borers are able to actively shift symbiont communities, thus engaging in active farming. The study also found that the beetles exhibit selective promotion and/or suppression of symbionts, though the exact mechanisms behind this behavior require further investigation.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Jennifer A. Lau, Mark D. Hammond, Jennifer E. Schmidt, Dylan J. Weese, Wendy H. Yang, Katy D. Heath
Summary: This study examines the effects of reduced cooperation in rhizobium mutualists due to evolution on soil nitrogen, plant community composition, and ecosystem processes. The results show that the evolution of reduced rhizobium cooperation has comparable or even stronger effects on soil nitrogen, nitrogen fixation, and leaf nitrogen concentrations compared to rhizobium inoculation treatments. The effects of both rhizobium evolution and inoculation on plant community composition and species diversity are smaller in magnitude but can alter the relative abundance of plant functional groups.
Article
Ecology
Michelle E. Afkhami, Maren L. Friesen, John R. Stinchcombe
Summary: The study shows that multiple mutualisms have synergistic effects on host plant trait selection and heritability, as well as enhancing fitness alignment between mutualists. Interaction with multiple microbial symbionts doubles the strength of natural selection on plant traits, results in 2- to 3-fold higher heritability of plant reproductive success, and more than doubles fitness alignment between N-fixing bacteria and plants.
Article
Plant Sciences
Silmar Primieri, Susan M. Magnoli, Thomas Koffel, Sidney L. Sturmer, James D. Bever
Summary: The study found that perennial legumes may have synergistic effects with AMF and rhizobia, while annual plants do not. AMF and rhizobia can increase phosphorus and nitrogen tissue concentrations in plants to varying degrees. Microbial responses to co-infection are closely related to synergisms in plant growth.
Article
Microbiology
Ying Ren, Xianrong Che, Jingwei Liang, Sijia Wang, Lina Han, Ziyi Liu, Hui Chen, Ming Tang
Summary: Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) and Brassinosteroids (BR) play key roles in enhancing plant growth and development, with BR actively regulating AM symbiosis and synergistically promoting plant growth, while AM fungal colonization can alleviate the growth inhibition caused by excessive BR. The study provides insights into the complex interactions between phytohormones and AM symbiosis, offering implications for future research in this field.
MICROBIOLOGY SPECTRUM
(2021)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Jonathan M. Plett, Shingo Miyauchi, Emmanuelle Morin, Krista Plett, Johanna Wong-Bajracharya, Maira de Freitas Pereira, Alan Kuo, Bernard Henrissat, Elodie Drula, Dominika Wojtalewicz, Robert Riley, Jasmyn Pangilinan, William Andreopoulos, Kurt LaButti, Chris Daum, Yuko Yoshinaga, Laure Fauchery, Vivian Ng, Anna Lipzen, Kerrie Barry, Vasanth Singan, Jie Guo, Teresa Lebel, Mauricio Dutra Costa, Igor Grigoriev, Francis Martin, Ian C. Anderson, Annegret Kohler
Summary: A comparative study of nine species of the Pisolithus fungal genus found that a small core set of genes were significantly regulated during symbiosis with a host, while poorly conserved genes were more likely to be induced by symbiosis, suggesting their role in host specificity. The gene repertoire of Pisolithus species differed from other fungi in terms of enzymes associated with symbiotic sugar processing, but the presence or expression of these genes did not predict sugar capture or metabolism.
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2023)
Article
Agronomy
G. S. Ortiz-Barbosa, L. Torres-Martinez, J. Rothschild, J. L. Sachs
Summary: Legumes have the ability to optimize growth by discriminating between fixed nitrogen from rhizobia and nitrogen in the soil. However, the recognition and regulation of symbiotically fixed nitrogen remain poorly understood. This study manipulated the molecular form and concentration of nitrogen available to investigate the adaptability of Lotus japonicus plants in downregulating investment into symbiosis when exposed to different nitrogen sources. The results suggest that L. japonicus can selectively downregulate symbiosis when exposed to certain nitrogen sources, but fails to do so in the presence of aspartic acid, indicating that aspartic acid may interfere with the main signal used by L. japonicus to detect nitrogen fixation.
Article
Ecology
Camille E. Wendlandt, Kelsey A. Gano-Cohen, Peter J. N. Stokes, Basava N. R. Jonnala, Avissa J. Zomorrodian, Khadija Al-Moussawi, Joel L. Sachs
Summary: The effects of nitrogen enrichment on plants and soil microbial communities mainly depend on the differences among plant lines rather than soil nitrogen levels. Despite elevated soil nitrogen levels, plant populations still impose strong selection on rhizobial nitrogen fixation, suggesting that host control traits are stable under long-term nutrient enrichment.
Article
Biology
Samin Gokcekus, Ella F. Cole, Ben C. Sheldon, Josh A. Firth
Summary: Understanding why individuals cooperate with genetically unrelated others is a major focus in biology. The social network approach is beneficial in identifying factors influencing cooperation, testing various routes to cooperation, and uncovering evolutionary and ecological pressures leading to differences in cooperation in natural populations.
BIOLOGICAL REVIEWS
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Yuanshu Pu, Alivereti Naikatini, Oscar Alejandro Perez-Escobar, Martina Silber, Susanne S. Renner, Guillaume Chomicki
Summary: This study identifies gene expression patterns associated with different types of walls within the ant-plant farming symbiosis, shedding light on the functional characteristics of this relationship and the genetic pathways co-opted following the emergence of agriculture.
ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2021)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Louis Berrios, Jay Yeam, Lindsey Holm, Wallis Robinson, Peter T. Pellitier, Mei Lin Chin, Terry W. Henkel, Kabir G. Peay
Summary: Bacteria, ectomycorrhizal fungi, and land plants have coevolved for nearly 200 million years, but the nature of their interactions across landscapes and within individual plant hosts remains unclear. This study investigates the impact of select bacterial taxa on the abundance of ectomycorrhizal fungi and identifies common mechanisms that facilitate multipartite symbioses.
Article
Ecology
Christopher Carlson, Erol Akcay, Bryce Morsky
Summary: Mutualistic species have different levels of partner specificity, which has important implications for evolution, ecology, and management, but the mechanisms behind partner specificity are not fully understood. Cooperation and conflict are both involved in mutualistic relationships, and specialization to a mutualistic partner can be cooperative or antagonistic. A game theoretic model is used to study the evolutionary dynamics of cooperative specialization, antagonistic specialization, and generalism, which shows that cooperative specialization leads to stable equilibria with a specialist host and its preferred partner, while antagonistic specialization favors generalism. The study provides predictions on how the continuum between cooperation and antagonism determines partner specificity in mutualistic relationships.
Review
Plant Sciences
Alison E. Bennett, Karin Groten
Summary: This review explores the symbiotic interaction between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, highlighting the context dependency of this relationship and the various benefits AM fungi can provide to plants beyond improved phosphorus nutrition and growth.
ANNUAL REVIEW OF PLANT BIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Plant Sciences
Jenalle L. Eck, Minna-Maarit Kytoviita, Anna-Liisa Laine
Summary: This field experiment in Finland revealed that mutualistic arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi can both increase host plant growth and infection rates. The impact of mycorrhizal fungi on disease severity varied among host genotypes and strengthened over time during the epidemic. Host genotypes that were more susceptible to the pathogen received stronger protective effects from inoculation.
Article
Ecology
Anouk van't Padje, Malin Klein, Victor Caldas, Loreto Oyarte Galvez, Cathleen Broersma, Nicky Hoebe, Ian R. Sanders, Thomas Shimizu, E. Toby Kiers
Summary: This study used arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis to investigate the effects of fungal relatedness on host and fungal benefits, finding that less-related fungi were associated with increased fungal growth, lower nutrient transport, and reduced plant benefits. The research demonstrates how symbiont relatedness can mediate the benefits of symbiotic relationships.