Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2021
Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster V3
Höfundar / Authors: Denis Warshan, Reynir F. Reynisson, Ólafur S. Andrésson
Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Iceland, Sturlugata 7, Reykjavík, 101, Iceland
Kynnir / Presenter: Denis Warshan and Reynir F. Reynisson
The growth of crop plants is often limited by access to nitrogen (N). N is mostly supplied to plants by adding fertilisers, however, this is expensive for farmers and has adverse impacts on the ecosystem. Thus, there are gains to be had from reducing dependence on fertilisers. Research on N2-fixation symbiosis, where bacteria convert atmospheric N2 to N compounds available to plants, in an agricultural setting remains understudied. In this perspective, the symbioses between crop plants and Nostoc cyanobacteria found leaving with plants and lichens represent an unexplored possibility. This study will help explore this question by 1) testing the symbiotic compatibility between Nostoc strains and crop plants to understand the benefits for the plant, and 2) deepen our understanding of their co-evolution by using comparative phylogenomic. We found that all the crop plants tested are being colonized by Nostoc, but only phylogenetically related strains can penetrate the plant cells. We could not identify a clear growth benefit for the plants (roots or leaves) when grown with Nostoc. However, preliminary results show that Nostoc in combination with N has a synergetic positive effect on plant growth compared to the plant growing with N only. Altogether, this project will help to understand these symbioses and potentially make advances in expanding symbiotic N2-fixation to a greater diversity of crop plants, providing alternatives to the use of fertilisers.