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Terrestrial-type nitrogen-fixing symbiosis between seagrass and a marine bacterium
Mohr, W.; Lehnen, N.; Ahmerkamp, S.; Marchant, H.K.; Graf, J.S.; Tschitschko, B.; Yilmaz, P.; Littmann, S.; Gruber-Vodicka, H.; Leisch, N.; Weber, M.; Lott, C.; Schubert, C.J.; Milucka, J.; Kuypers, M.M. (2021). Terrestrial-type nitrogen-fixing symbiosis between seagrass and a marine bacterium. Nature (Lond.) 600(7887): 105-109. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04063-4
In: Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science. Nature Publishing Group: London. ISSN 0028-0836; e-ISSN 1476-4687, more
Related to:
Capone, D.G. (2021). A seagrass harbours a nitrogen-fixing partner. Nature (Lond.) 600(7887): 42-43. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02956-y, more
Peer reviewed article  
Available in  Authors 
Authors  Top 
  • Mohr, W.
  • Lehnen, N.
  • Ahmerkamp, S.
  • Marchant, H.K.
  • Graf, J.S.
  • Tschitschko, B.
  • Yilmaz, P.
  • Littmann, S.
  • Gruber-Vodicka, H.
  • Leisch, N.
  • Weber, M.
  • Lott, C.
  • Schubert, C.J.
  • Milucka, J.
  • Kuypers, M.M.
Abstract
    Symbiotic N2-fixing microorganisms have a crucial role in the assimilation of nitrogen by eukaryotes in nitrogen-limited environments. Particularly among land plants, N2-fixing symbionts occur in a variety of distantly related plant lineages and often involve an intimate association between host and symbiont. Descriptions of such intimate symbioses are lacking for seagrasses, which evolved around 100 million years ago from terrestrial flowering plants that migrated back to the sea. Here we describe an N2-fixing symbiont, ‘Candidatus Celerinatantimonas neptuna’, that lives inside seagrass root tissue, where it provides ammonia and amino acids to its host in exchange for sugars. As such, this symbiosis is reminiscent of terrestrial N2-fixing plant symbioses. The symbiosis between Ca. C. neptuna and its host Posidonia oceanica enables highly productive seagrass meadows to thrive in the nitrogen-limited Mediterranean Sea. Relatives of Ca. C. neptuna occur worldwide in coastal ecosystems, in which they may form similar symbioses with other seagrasses and saltmarsh plants. Just like N2-fixing microorganisms might have aided the colonization of nitrogen-poor soils by early land plants, the ancestors of Ca. C. neptuna and its relatives probably enabled flowering plants to invade nitrogen-poor marine habitats, where they formed extremely efficient blue carbon ecosystems.
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