Phylogeography and Symbiotic Effectiveness of Rhizobia Nodulating Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) in Ethiopia

Gunnabo, A H and van Heerwaarden, J and Geurts, R and Wolde-meskel, E and Degefu, T and Giller, K E (2020) Phylogeography and Symbiotic Effectiveness of Rhizobia Nodulating Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) in Ethiopia. Microbial Ecology (TSI). ISSN 0095-3628

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Abstract

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) used to be considered a restrictive host that nodulated and fixed nitrogen only with Mesorhizobium ciceri and M.mediterraneum. Recent analysis revealed that chickpea can also establish effective symbioseswith strains of several other Mesorhizobium species such as M. loti, M. haukuii, M. amorphae, M. muleiense, etc. These strains vary in their nitrogen fixation potential inviting further exploration. We characterized newly collected mesorhizobial strains isolated from various locations in Ethiopia to evaluate genetic diversity, biogeographic structure and symbiotic effectiveness. Symbiotic effectiveness was evaluated in Leonard Jars using a locally released chickpea cultivar “Nattoli”. Most of the new isolates belonged to a clade related to M. plurifarium, with very few sequence differences, while the total collection of strains contained three additional mesorhizobial genospecies associated with M. ciceri, M. abyssinicae and an unidentified Mesorhizobium species isolated from a wild host in Eritrea. The four genospecies identified represented a subset of the eight major Mesorhizobium clades recently reported for Ethiopia based on metagenomic data. All Ethiopian strains had nearly identical symbiotic genes that grouped them in a single cluster with M. ciceri, M. mediterraneum and M. muleiense, but not with M. plurifarium. Some phylogeographic structure was observed, with elevation and geography explaining some of the genetic differences among strains, but the relation between genetic identity and symbiotic effectiveness was observed to be weak.

Item Type:	Article
Divisions:	Research Program : East & Southern Africa
CRP:	UNSPECIFIED
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Genetic diversity, Genospecies, Haplotypes, Mesorhizobial, strains, Nucleotides, Spatial patterns
Subjects:	Others > Molecular Biology Mandate crops > Chickpea Others > Legume Crops Others > Ethiopia
Depositing User:	Mr Arun S
Date Deposited:	29 Dec 2020 12:38
Last Modified:	29 Dec 2020 12:38
URI:	http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/11680
Official URL:	https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-020-01620-8
Projects:	UNSPECIFIED
Funders:	UNSPECIFIED
Acknowledgement:	We thank the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for partnering in this research through a grant to the Wageningen University to support the project N2Africa: Putting Nitrogen Fixation to Work for Smallholder Farmers in Africa
Links:	Google Scholar

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