Experimental evolution can enhance benefits of rhizobia to novel legume hosts.

ABSTRACT: Legumes preferentially associate with and reward beneficial rhizobia in root nodules, but the processes by which rhizobia evolve to provide benefits to novel hosts remain poorly understood. Using cycles of in planta and in vitro evolution, we experimentally simulated lifestyles where rhizobia repeatedly interact with novel plant genotypes with which they initially provide negligible benefits. Using a full-factorial replicated design, we independently evolved two rhizobia strains in associations with each of two Lotus japonicus genotypes that vary in regulation of nodule formation. We evaluated phenotypic evolution of rhizobia by quantifying fitness, growth effects and histological features on hosts, and molecular evolution via genome resequencing. Rhizobia evolved enha

SUBMITTER: Quides KW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8150021 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature