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Rhizobial Resource Associated with Epidemic Legumes in Tibet

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Abstract

A total of 128 bacterial test strains originated from Astragalus, Caragana, Gueldenstaedtia, Medicago, Melilotus, Oxytropis, Trifolium, and Vicia grown in Tibet were characterized phenotypically and genomically. Based upon the consensus of grouping results, they were identified as 16 putative species. Twenty-five test strains belonging to seven putative species of Agrobacterium, Bradyrhizobium, and Rhizobium might be nonsymbiotic bacteria and the remaining 103 test strains were symbiotic bacteria belonging to Mesorhizobium, Rhizobium, and Sinorhizobium meliloti. Although no novel taxon was detected in the symbiotic bacteria, several characters including the alkaliphilic psychrotolerance revealed that the Tibetan rhizobia could be ecotypes adapted to the local conditions. The results also demonstrated that frequent lateral transfer of symbiotic genes might have happened in the Tibetan rhizobia since nodC genes similar to that of S. meliloti were found in several Rhizobium test strains and all the Mesorhizobium species had very similar nodC genes despite their genomic background. All of these findings demonstrated that the Tibetan rhizobia were an important resource for further studies on rhizobial ecology and application.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the foundation of the National Basic Research Program of China (2006CB100206) and the foundation of the National Program for Basic S&T Platform Construction (2005DKA21201-10). ETW was financially supported by the grants of SIP 20070538 and SIP 20080322 authorized by IPN, Mexico.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Agro-Microbial Resource and Application, Ministry of Agriculture/College of Biological Sciences, China Agricultural University, 100193, Beijing, China

    Bao Chao Hou, Ying Li, Rui Zong Jia, Wen Feng Chen, Chao Xin Man, Xin Hua Sui & Wen Xin Chen

  2. Departamento de Microbiología, Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biológicas, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, 11340, México, México

    En Tao Wang

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  1. Bao Chao Hou
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Correspondence to Wen Xin Chen.

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Hou, B.C., Wang, E.T., Li, Y. et al. Rhizobial Resource Associated with Epidemic Legumes in Tibet. Microb Ecol 57, 69–81 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-008-9397-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-008-9397-4

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