Terrestrial-type nitrogen-fixing symbiosis between seagrass and a marine bacterium.

ABSTRACT: Symbiotic N₂-fixing microorganisms have a crucial role in the assimilation of nitrogen by eukaryotes in nitrogen-limited environments^1-3. 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^2,4. 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 sea⁵. 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

SUBMITTER: Mohr W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8636270 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature