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

Wiebke Mohr (), Nadine Lehnen, Soeren Ahmerkamp, Hannah K. Marchant, Jon S. Graf, Bernhard Tschitschko, Pelin Yilmaz, Sten Littmann, Harald Gruber-Vodicka, Nikolaus Leisch, Miriam Weber, Christian Lott, Carsten J. Schubert, Jana Milucka and Marcel M. M. Kuypers
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Wiebke Mohr: Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology
Nadine Lehnen: Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology
Soeren Ahmerkamp: Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology
Hannah K. Marchant: Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology
Jon S. Graf: Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology
Bernhard Tschitschko: Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology
Pelin Yilmaz: Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology
Sten Littmann: Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology
Harald Gruber-Vodicka: Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology
Nikolaus Leisch: Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology
Miriam Weber: HYDRA Marine Sciences GmbH
Christian Lott: HYDRA Marine Sciences GmbH
Carsten J. Schubert: Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), Department of Surface Waters-Research and Management
Jana Milucka: Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology
Marcel M. M. Kuypers: Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology

Nature, 2021, vol. 600, issue 7887, 105-109

Abstract: Abstract Symbiotic N2-fixing microorganisms have a crucial role in the assimilation of nitrogen by eukaryotes in nitrogen-limited environments1–3. 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 symbiont2,4. 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 terrestrial N2-fixing plant symbioses. The symbiosis between Ca. C. neptuna and its host Posidonia oceanica enables highly productive seagrass meadows to thrive in the nitrogen-limited Mediterranean Sea. Relatives of Ca. C. neptuna occur worldwide in coastal ecosystems, in which they may form similar symbioses with other seagrasses and saltmarsh plants. Just like N2-fixing microorganisms might have aided the colonization of nitrogen-poor soils by early land plants6, the ancestors of Ca. C. neptuna and its relatives probably enabled flowering plants to invade nitrogen-poor marine habitats, where they formed extremely efficient blue carbon ecosystems7.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04063-4

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