Abstract
Lemnaceae plants, commonly referred to as duckweeds, are small planktonic terrestrial freshwater plants that live in symbiosis with various microbial communities. Azotobacter vinelandii are typical free-living nitrogen fixing soil bacteria that indirectly benefit plants by providing nitrogen compounds. In this study, Lemna minor RDSC 5512 and A. vinelandii ATCC 12837 = NBRC 13581 were co-cultured under gnotobiotic conditions. The growth of L. minor colonized by A. vinelandii was accelerated in both nitrogen-containing and nitrogen-free water conditions. The growth promotion effect is attributed to several plant growth promotion factors produced by the bacterium as well as biological nitrogen fixation in nitrogen-free condition. Moreover, L. minor elevated the nitrogen fixing activity of A. vinelandii and the cell number of A. vinelandii on L. minor increased continuously over 30 d. These observations indicated that L. minor provides a favorable environment for A. vinelandii colonization, allowing them to mutually benefit and flourish through syntrophism.
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Funding
This study was supported by the Advanced Low Carbon Technology Research and Development Program (ALCA, JPMJAL1108) of the Japan Science and Technology Agency, JST, Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development Program (SATREPS, JPMJSA2004) and JSPS KAKENHI (Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Pioneering), JP21K18239).
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KS and MM conceived the research concept. KS designed, planned, and performed all the experiments. JR helped KS with the analysis of experimental data. KS wrote the first draft of the manuscript and MM and JR commented on previous version of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Shuvro, S.K., Jog, R. & Morikawa, M. Diazotrophic bacterium Azotobacter vinelandii as a mutualistic growth promoter of an aquatic plant: Lemna minor. Plant Growth Regul 100, 171–180 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10725-022-00948-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10725-022-00948-0