Plant–Cyanobacteria Symbiosis: From Morphology to Practical Uses

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Ecology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 August 2024) | Viewed by 1888

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Instituto Nacional de Investigação Agrária (INIAV), Avenida da República, 2780-505 Oeiras, Portugal
Interests: cyanobacterial symbiosis; Azolla; secondary metabolites; biological activities; phylogeny; biofertilizers; agriculture

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Plant–cyanobacterial symbiosis is a diverse and never-ending source of new hypotheses and research themes. The symbiosis between plants (aquatic and terrestrial) and algae/microalgae with a few genera of cyanobacteria is a very ancient process with benefits for one or both organisms. The establishment of those symbioses leads to morphological structures on the plants (host) that act as interfaces and enable co-dependence throughout evolution. In general, the host provide carbohydrates and the nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria nitrogen. The high content of nitrogen makes those symbioses very competitive in nitrogen-deficient environments, which is useful for producing biofertilizer. The discovery of the recognition signals and their pathway or pathways can be very important when developing artificial cyanobacterial symbioses with crops alongside the high content in nitrogen. However, other applications of these symbioses are the phytoremediation of contaminated water and soils, as food for humans and animals, or even as sources of metabolites with bioactivities, among many others useful applications.

This Special Issue of Plants will accept original research papers, perspectives, hypotheses, opinions, reviews, modeling approaches, and methods regarding all the topics linked with plant–cyanobacterial symbioses and their potential applications.

Dr. Ana Luisa Pereira
Guest Editor

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

18 pages, 6791 KiB  
Review
Origin and Evolution of the Azolla Superorganism
by Jonathan Bujak and Alexandra Bujak
Plants 2024, 13(15), 2106; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants13152106 - 29 Jul 2024
Viewed by 1365
Abstract
Azolla is the only plant with a co-evolving nitrogen-fixing (diazotrophic) cyanobacterial symbiont (cyanobiont), Nostoc azollae, resulting from whole-genome duplication (WGD) 80 million years ago in Azolla’s ancestor. Additional genes from the WGD resulted in genetic, biochemical, and morphological changes in the [...] Read more.
Azolla is the only plant with a co-evolving nitrogen-fixing (diazotrophic) cyanobacterial symbiont (cyanobiont), Nostoc azollae, resulting from whole-genome duplication (WGD) 80 million years ago in Azolla’s ancestor. Additional genes from the WGD resulted in genetic, biochemical, and morphological changes in the plant that enabled the transmission of the cyanobiont to successive generations via its megaspores. The resulting permanent symbiosis and co-evolution led to the loss, downregulation, or conversion of non-essential genes to pseudogenes in the cyanobiont, changing it from a free-living organism to an obligate symbiont. The upregulation of other genes in the cyanobiont increased its atmospheric dinitrogen fixation and the provision of nitrogen-based products to the plant. As a result, Azolla can double its biomass in less than two days free-floating on fresh water and sequester large amounts of atmospheric CO2, giving it the potential to mitigate anthropogenic climate change through carbon capture and storage. Azolla’s biomass can also provide local, low-cost food, biofertiliser, feed, and biofuel that are urgently needed as our population increases by a billion every twelve years. This paper integrates data from biology, genetics, geology, and palaeontology to identify the location, timing and mechanism for the acquisition of a co-evolving diazotrophic cyanobiont by Azolla’s ancestor in the Late Cretaceous (Campanian) of North America. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plant–Cyanobacteria Symbiosis: From Morphology to Practical Uses)
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