Tag: Symbiosis

Coale et al. provide an exciting peek into the evolution of a nitrogen-fixing organelle (called a nitroplast) in their studies of a tiny marine alga, Braarudosphaera bigelowii and its endosymbiont cyanobacterium, Candidatus Atelocyanobacterium thalassa (UCYN-A). Plant biologists are familiar with…

For many years, biologists argued about whether plants have peptide hormones like animals have, and ever since it was first shown that plant peptides do have hormone-like functions, I’ve said a little cheer as new functions are discovered (Yay plants!). A few years ago, Sonali Roy and colleagues wrote…

This outstanding Tansley review by Martin and van der Heijden spans the scale of research on mycorrhizal symbiosis from molecules to ecosystems, and spans time from the earliest encroachment of plants and fungi onto land to the future applications of our understanding. This very comprehensive review…

Most plants benefit from symbiotic associations with fungi, in which the fungi aid in nutrient update particularly of phosphate, and the plant returns the favor by supplying the fungi with lipids. Several but not all of the molecular players required for these important pathways have been identified.…

Lichens are remarkable, complex symbiotic organisms. They have evolved multiple times independently, but all lichen include at least one fungal partner (the mycobiont) which they usually resemble morphologically, and at least one cyanobacterial or algal photosynthetic partner (the photobiont). This partnership…

Symbioses and nodule organogenesis processes that occur independently of Nod-factors are relatively unexplored. Quilbe et al. investigated the semi-aquatic legume Aeschynomene evenia, which has recently been shown to establish symbioses with Bradyrhizobium sp. that do not produce Nod factors. The authors…

Plants form symbiotic associations with a variety of microbial partners, among which arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are prominent. AMF are known to enrich plants with a host of vital nutrients including the essential macronutrient phosphorus. While the finer details of plant-AMF association are known…