Article
Agronomy
Niall Millar, Jonah Piovia-Scott, Stephanie S. Porter
Summary: This study compared the symbiosis traits between domesticated and wild legume cultivars in response to varying nitrogen levels. The results showed that there are differences in mutualistic outcomes between domesticated and wild chickpea and soybean, but not lentil, pea, or peanut.
Editorial Material
Microbiology
Katy D. Heath, Rebecca T. Batstone, Mario Ceron Romero, John G. McMullen
Summary: In this study, genomics was used to investigate the diversity of mobile genetic elements carrying symbiosis genes in natural populations of Bradyrhizobium. The findings provide insights into the novel mechanisms for generating and maintaining diversity in these ecologically and economically important mutualisms.
Article
Ecology
J. D. Elias, A. A. Agrawal
Summary: Changes in resource availability have a significant impact on interspecific interactions, with nitrogen limitation driving plant competition and nitrogen-fixing plant symbiosis alleviating competition with nonfixing plants. Study results show that nitrogen-fixing plants perform better in competition under low nitrogen conditions, with rhizobia aiding in mitigating negative effects of competition. Additionally, a cost of mutualism was observed in nitrogen addition, where inoculated plants had a slight decline in performance.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Arafat Rahman, Max Manci, Cassandra Nadon, Ivan A. Perez, Warisha F. Farsamin, Matthew T. Lampe, Tram H. Le, Lorena Torres Martinez, Alexandra J. Weisberg, Jeff H. Chang, Joel L. Sachs
Summary: The capacity of beneficial microbes to compete for host infection and the ability of hosts to discriminate among them introduce evolutionary conflict that may destabilize mutualism. This study investigates the fitness outcomes in associations between legumes and their symbiotic rhizobia, and finds that microbial competition has an impact on fitness. The findings suggest that inter-strain competition favors fast-growing, minimally beneficial rhizobia strains, and that competition traits are polygenic and linked with inter-strain allelopathic interactions in the rhizosphere.
Article
Microbiology
Bryden Fields, Emma K. Moffat, Ville-Petri Friman, Ellie Harrison
Summary: Rhizobia play a critical role in plant ecosystems and sustainable agriculture by fixing nitrogen within legumes roots. The diversity of rhizobia symbionts infecting individual plants affects productivity within the symbiosis, with no significant impact of rhizobium diversity found statistically. However, productivity within the symbiosis can be improved by including high performing strains in multi-strain inoculants.
Article
Plant Sciences
Muhammad Tahir, Xiao Wei, Haiping Liu, Jiayi Li, Jiqiong Zhou, Bo Kang, Dongmei Jiang, Yanhong Yan
Summary: This study evaluated the responses of different cropping systems under various N inputs in terms of forage yield, nutritional quality, soil nutrients, and soil enzyme activities. The results showed that the A1 mixture under N2 input had the highest forage yield of 13.88 t ha(-1) year(-1), while the A2 mixture under N3 input had the highest forage yield of 14.39 t ha(-1) year(-1). The CP content of grass monocultures and mixtures increased significantly with an increase in N input. The A1 and A2 mixtures under N2 input had higher urease and hydroxylamine oxidoreductase enzyme activities compared to other cropping systems. Overall, growing legume-grass mixtures under N2 input is cost-effective, sustainable, and eco-friendly, providing higher forage yield and improved nutritional quality.
FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE
(2023)
Review
Microbiology
Ravinder K. K. Goyal, Jemaneh Z. Z. Habtewold
Summary: Plants face unfavorable conditions and microbial pathogens that can cause damage to their growth and survival. Maintaining a healthy and stress-free host plant is crucial for a successful symbiotic relationship with rhizobia. The rhizobia not only assist with nitrogen fixation but also enhance the plant's defense mechanisms against stress and provide disease protection.
Article
Ecology
Xiaoxia Deng, Lianfu Chen, Enwei Tian, Dayong Zhang, Tanming Wattana, Hui Yu, Finn Kjellberg, Simon T. Segar
Summary: Researchers aim to study the geographical differences, community composition, and structures of non-pollinating fig wasps and pollinating fig wasps using pan-tropical fig-wasp communities. They found that non-pollinating wasps have more stable distributions across different geographic locations compared to pollinating wasps, but still exhibit differences. The segregation among different non-pollinating wasp species suggests the influence of factors such as resource competition and local adaptation.
JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Liana T. Burghardt, Brendan Epstein, Michelle Hoge, Diana I. Trujillo, Peter Tiffin
Summary: The research examines the influence of environmental factors on the nitrogen-fixing mutualism between leguminous plants and rhizobial bacteria. It finds that host genotype, nitrogen addition, rhizobial density, and community complexity all affect selection on rhizobial strains. Rhizobial density has a stronger impact on strain frequency compared to nitrogen addition. Higher density leads to less diverse but more beneficial nodule communities, particularly in the context of more selective host genotypes.
APPLIED AND ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Microbiology
Wen Feng Chen, Xiang Fei Meng, Yin Shan Jiao, Chang Fu Tian, Xin Hua Sui, Jian Jiao, En Tao Wang, Sheng Jun Ma
Summary: The development of bacteroids in the nodules of peanut and Sophora flavescens was investigated by using a single rhizobial strain, Bradyrhizobium arachidis. Bacteroids in peanut nodules were swollen and had a higher nitrogen fixation efficiency compared to nonswollen bacteroids in Sophora flavescens nodules. Transcriptome analysis revealed similar gene expression patterns in terms of nitrogen fixation and motility, but differences in urease activity and peptidoglycan biosynthesis.
MICROBIOLOGY SPECTRUM
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Lucas P. Henry, Marjolein Bruijning, Simon K. G. Forsberg, Julien F. Ayroles
Summary: The article discusses how the microbiome influences host evolution, proposes that integrating microbiome into quantitative genetics can help unravel the complexity of host-microbiome evolution, and describes the two general ways in which the microbiome may affect host evolutionary potential.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2021)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Casandra Hernandez-Reyes, Elisabeth Lichtenberg, Jean Keller, Pierre-Marc Delaux, Thomas Ott, Sebastian T. Schenk
Summary: This study investigated the response of the non-legume plant Arabidopsis to changes in root system architecture induced by rhizobia under different nitrate conditions. The study found that rhizobium-induced lateral root growth, increased root hair length, and density are regulated by a nitrate-related signaling pathway. AtNLP4 and AtNLP5 were identified as key players in this process. At the cellular level, AtNLP4 and AtNLP5 control a rhizobium-induced decrease in cell elongation rates.
MOLECULAR PLANT-MICROBE INTERACTIONS
(2022)
Review
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Laura Grieneisen, Ran Blekhman, Elizabeth Archie
Summary: A crucial aspect of microbiome research is understanding how host genetics influence the composition of gut microbiota. However, it is challenging to establish a direct link between host genetics and gut microbiota composition due to the correlation between host genetic similarity and environmental similarity. Longitudinal microbiome data can offer valuable insights into the relative impact of genetic processes on the microbiome by revealing environmentally contingent host genetic effects and comparing genetic effects in different environments. This article explores four areas in which longitudinal data can provide new knowledge on host genetic effects on the microbiome: microbial heritability, microbial plasticity, microbial stability, and host and microbiome population genetics. Methodological considerations for future studies are also discussed.
Article
Agriculture, Multidisciplinary
Jessica L. Rigg, Ashlea T. Webster, Deirdre M. Harvey, Susan E. Orgill, Francesca Galea, Adrian G. Dando, Damian P. Collins, Carol A. Harris, Matthew T. Newell, Warwick B. Badgery, Richard C. Hayes
Summary: This study evaluated the compatibility and nitrogen fixation ability of various pasture legumes and commercial rhizobial strains in the high rainfall zone of southeastern Australia. It found that some pasture legume cultivars differ in their ability to form effective symbiosis with different rhizobial strains, and some species were found to form ineffective symbiosis in the field, potentially hindering their development as pasture plants in similar environments.
CROP & PASTURE SCIENCE
(2021)
Review
Environmental Sciences
Paula Belles-Sancho, Chrizelle Beukes, Euan K. James, Gabriella Pessi
Summary: This review focuses on the nitrogen-fixing symbionts of the beta-rhizobial genus Paraburkholderia, including the highly versatile strain P. phymatum STM815(T) that exhibits extraordinary features such as its ability to form symbiotic relationships with a wide range of legume species and withstand challenging soil conditions.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Elliott G. Duncan, Cathryn A. O'Sullivan, Anna K. Simonsen, Margaret M. Roper, Karen Treble, Kelley Whisson
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Anna K. Simonsen, Russell Dinnage, Luke G. Barrett, Suzanne M. Prober, Peter H. Thrall
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2017)
Article
Soil Science
Elliott G. Duncan, Cathryn A. O'Sullivan, Anna K. Simonsen, Margaret M. Roper, Mark B. Peoples, Karen Treble, Kelley Whisson
Article
Biology
Tia L. Harrison, Anna K. Simonsen, John R. Stinchcombe, Megan E. Frederickson
Article
Plant Sciences
Russell Dinnage, Anna K. Simonsen, Luke G. Barrett, Marcel Cardillo, Nat Raisbeck-Brown, Peter H. Thrall, Suzanne M. Prober
JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY
(2019)
Article
Ecology
Philip Rekret, Hafiz Maherali
Article
Ecology
Anna K. Simonsen, Luke G. Barrett, Peter H. Thrall, Suzanne M. Prober
Article
Plant Sciences
Rebecca T. Batstone, Madeline A. E. Peters, Anna K. Simonsen, John R. Stinchcombe, Megan E. Frederickson
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY
(2020)
Article
Biology
Julia A. Boyle, Anna K. Simonsen, Megan E. Frederickson, John R. Stinchcombe
Summary: Priority effects occur when the order of species arrival affects the final community structure. In the case of mutualists interacting with hosts in different orders, the outcome can be influenced by the interaction order, with hosts receiving high-quality mutualists early better tolerating low-quality symbionts later.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Anna K. Simonsen
Summary: Bacteria show continuous reduction in genome content under environmental stress, with genes predicted to be superfluous more likely lost in high stress conditions. Gene loss is widespread across the entire genome, with high gene-retention hotspots near core genes to stabilize viability during genomic decay.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Pedro M. Tognetti, Suzanne M. Prober, Selene Baez, Enrique J. Chaneton, Jennifer Firn, Anita C. Risch, Martin Schuetz, Anna K. Simonsen, Laura Yahdjian, Elizabeth T. Borer, Eric W. Seabloom, Carlos Alberto Arnillas, Jonathan D. Bakker, Cynthia S. Brown, Marc W. Cadotte, Maria C. Caldeira, Pedro Daleo, John M. Dwyer, Philip A. Fay, Laureano A. Gherardi, Nicole Hagenah, Yann Hautier, Kimberly J. Komatsu, Rebecca L. McCulley, Jodi N. Price, Rachel J. Standish, Carly J. Stevens, Peter D. Wragg, Mahesh Sankaran
Summary: Nitrogen addition decreases the abundance and diversity of legumes in grasslands, especially in nitrogen-poor soils, while increasing the cover of non-nitrogen fixing plants. The addition of phosphorus, potassium, and other nutrients can enhance the abundance of legumes, but does not counteract the negative effects of nitrogen addition.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2021)
Article
Plant Sciences
Zoe. A. A. Parshuram, Tia. L. L. Harrison, Anna. K. K. Simonsen, John. R. R. Stinchcombe, Megan. E. E. Frederickson
Summary: Both mutualism and polyploidy can influence plant invasion success, but their joint effects have been rarely studied. This study showed that polyploid legume species have been successfully introduced to new ranges, but their range expansion is constrained by interactions with rhizobia. In contrast, diploid legume species have limited spread regardless of symbiotic status with rhizobia.
Article
Biology
Pooja Nathan, Evan P. Economo, Benoit Guenard, Anna K. Simonsen, Megan E. Frederickson
Summary: Mutualism plays an important role in the spread and adaptation of species in new environments. Generalized mutualisms increase the likelihood of species establishing and thriving beyond native ranges, while specialized mutualisms do not affect or even reduce non-native spread.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Plant Sciences
Samuel C. Andrew, Pieter A. Arnold, Anna K. Simonsen, Veronica F. Briceno
Summary: This study investigated the heat tolerance of Acacia species in response to heatwaves and found that they displayed significant heat acclimation responses, which may explain their diversity and ubiquity in arid Australian ecosystems.
FUNCTIONAL PLANT BIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Microbiology
Ming-Dao Chia, Anna K. Simonsen
Summary: In this study, complete genome sequences of four Bradyrhizobium sp. strains isolated from the root nodules of Acacia acuminata were reported using a hybrid long- and short-read assembly approach. The genome sizes ranged between 7.1Mbp and 8.1Mbp, each containing a single circular chromosome. Whole-genome alignments revealed extensive structural rearrangement.
MICROBIOLOGY RESOURCE ANNOUNCEMENTS
(2021)