Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology with the participation of the Alfred Wegener Institute have discovered a new partnership between a marine diatom and a bacterium that can account for a large share of nitrogen fixation in vast regions of the ocean. The newly-discovered bacterial symbiont is closely related to the nitrogen-fixing Rhizobia which live in partnership with many crop plants and may open up new avenues to engineer nitrogen-fixing plants. This discovery, now described in the scientific journal Nature, could open up new avenues for the development of nitrogen-fixing plants.
![[Translate to English:] Kieselalgen mit Symbioanten](/fileadmin/_processed_/2/9/csm_CF17-Filter2-M4-overlay-v13-v19.1200_13bd30f9cb.jpg "Diatom with symbionts")
Nitrogen is an essential component of all living organisms. It is also the key element controlling the growth of crops on land, as well as the microscopic oceanic plants that produce half the oxygen on our planet. Atmospheric nitrogen gas is by far the largest pool of nitrogen, but plants cannot transform it into a usable form. Instead, crop plants like soybeans, peas and alfalfa (collectively known as legumes) have acquired Rhizobial bacterial partners that “fix” atmospheric nitrogen into ammonium. This partnership makes legumes one of the most important sources of proteins in food production.
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, now report that Rhizobia can also form similar partnerships with tiny marine plants called diatoms – a discovery that solves a long-standing marine mystery and which has potentially far-reaching agricultural applications. A co-author from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) was involved in the identification of a diatom species for the Nature publication. You can read the full article on this MPIMM website...