407: Fungus Facilitates Phototroph Feeding

Probably the last episode of the year. See you in the next!

This episode: Fungus living inside plants helps them form
partnerships with nitrogen-fixing bacteria!


Download Episode (5.9 MB, 8.5 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Prevotella intermedia

Takeaways
Plants are very good at acquiring carbon, but they can often use
some help with other nutrients. Many form partnerships with
microbes such as nitrogen-fixing bacteria or mycorrhizal fungi
that can help gather nutrients from the soil better than the
plants' own roots.

In this study, legume plants could form a partnership with
nitrogen-fixing bacteria in its roots, but a fungus living inside
the plant could enhance this partnership even more, increasing
the amount of nitrogen acquired and influencing the community of
microbes around the plant roots in ways favorable to all
partners.

Journal Paper:
Xie X-G, Zhang F-M, Yang T, Chen Y, Li X-G, Dai C-C. 2019.
Endophytic Fungus Drives Nodulation and N2 Fixation Attributable
to Specific Root Exudates. mBio 10:e00728-19,
/mbio/10/4/mBio.00728-19.atom.


Other interesting stories:



Diet could affect antibiotic impact on the gut microbiome

Feeding gut microbes particular preferred foods can
manipulate the community structure




 


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com. Thanks for listening!


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