Abstract
The ability of non-nodulating pioneer plants on newly exposed glacial till to obtain atmospheric N2 was investigated using both acetylene reduction assay (ARA) and 15N2 gas incorporation methods. Plant tissues were also examined for the presence of endophytic diazotrophic bacteria using high-throughput nifH amplification sequencing. Both ARA and 15N2 gas incorporation demonstrated that non-nodulating pioneer plants can obtain atmospheric N2, but the amount was highly variable depending on the plant organ, with clearly higher values in leaves relative to twigs and roots. High-throughput amplification sequencing of nifH genes indicated that a great variety of diazotrophic communities developed in pioneer plant tissues under primary succession. The N2 fixation rate (based on both 15N2 incorporation and ARA) was not directly linked to the abundance of any specific diazotrophs, but was correlated with the Chao1 index and the number of observed species, suggesting that different diazotrophs jointly accounted for N2 fixation activity. Our results highlight that non-nodulating pioneer plants may acquire N through endophytic N2-fixing bacteria as a supplement for other potential N sources in oligotrophic environments in early stages of primary succession following glacier retreat.
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Acknowledgements
The authors appreciate the support of the Alpine Ecosystem Observation and Experiment Station of Mt. Gongga, CAS. This work was financed by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 41877347) and the Sichuan Science and Technology Program (grant number 2020JDJQ0004).
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S.S., T.H.D., and G.W. planned and designed the research. J.Z., Z.H., X.S., W.W., and W.Z. performed experiments, conducted field work, and analyzed data. S.S. wrote the first draft of the manuscript and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Sun, S., DeLuca, T.H., Zhang, J. et al. Evidence of endophytic nitrogen fixation as a potential mechanism supporting colonization of non-nodulating pioneer plants on a glacial foreland. Biol Fertil Soils 58, 527–539 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-022-01640-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-022-01640-1