Genetic conflict with a parasitic nematode disrupts the legume-rhizobia mutualism.

ABSTRACT: Genetic variation for partner quality in mutualisms is an evolutionary paradox. One possible resolution to this puzzle is that there is a tradeoff between partner quality and other fitness-related traits. Here, we tested whether susceptibility to parasitism is one such tradeoff in the mutualism between legumes and nitrogen-fixing bacteria (rhizobia). We performed two greenhouse experiments with the legume Medicago truncatula. In the first, we inoculated each plant with the rhizobia Ensifer meliloti and with one of 40 genotypes of the parasitic root-knot nematode Meloidogyne hapla. In the second experiment, we inoculated all plants with rhizobia and half of the plants with a genetically variable population of nematodes. Using the number of nematode galls as a proxy for

SUBMITTER: Wood CW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6121810 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature