Ecological constraints and evolutionary trade-offs shape nitrogen fixation across habitats.

ABSTRACT: From its earliest beginnings, life's expansion into new habitats has been profoundly shaped by its reciprocal interactions with a changing Earth. To understand the evolution of life's metabolic engines, we must therefore uncover the ecological and evolutionary processes that shaped their underlying genes and networks. Here, we focus on nitrogen (N₂) fixation, one of life's most critical metabolisms, and investigate the ecological and evolutionary drivers of complexity within its associated gene machinery. We used a large-scale comparative genomics framework to construct a comprehensive catalog of extant N₂ fixation-associated genes and to assess their distribution across diverse microbial genomes and environments. Genomes enriched in N₂ fixation genes are g

SUBMITTER: Sobol MS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12903952 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature