ArticleOpen biology2015
Bacterial genospecies that are not ecologically coherent: population genomics of Rhizobium leguminosarum.
Article in Open biology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 52 papers.
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52 citing papers in PubMed, 138 citations in OpenAlex.
- Concurrent ecological and evolutionary processes contribute to mutualism breakdown between legumes and rhizobia.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Transitive interactions among rhizobia determine their symbiotic fitness.ISME communications · 2026Article
- Closed genomes of commercial inoculant rhizobia provide a blueprint for management of legume inoculation.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Increased diversity of beneficial rhizobia enhances faba bean growth.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Genetic Characterization ofPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Article
- The outstanding diversity of rhizobia microsymbionts of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) in Mato Grosso do Sul, central-western Brazil, revealing new Rhizobium species.Archives of microbiology · 2023Article
- A Selective Bottleneck During Host Entry Drives the Evolution of New Legume Symbionts.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Competition in thePlant and soil · 2023Article
- The changing paradigm of rhizobial taxonomy and its systematic growth upto postgenomic technologies.World journal of microbiology & biotechnology · 2022Review
- Genetic diversity of microsymbionts nodulating Trifolium pratense in subpolar and temperate climate regions.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Scent of a Symbiont: The Personalized Genetic Relationships of Rhizobium-Plant Interaction.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Review
- Why are rhizobial symbiosis genes mobile?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Microevolution, speciation and macroevolution in rhizobia: Genomic mechanisms and selective patterns.Frontiers in plant science · 2022Review
- Recombination Facilitates Adaptive Evolution in Rhizobial Soil Bacteria.Molecular biology and evolution · 2021Article
- The roles of antimicrobial resistance, phage diversity, isolation source and selection in shaping the genomic architecture ofMicrobial genomics · 2021Article
- The impact of intra-specific diversity in the rhizobia-legume symbiosis.Microbiology (Reading, England) · 2021Article
- Defining theGenes · 2021Article
- Competition, Nodule Occupancy, and Persistence of Inoculant Strains: Key Factors in theFrontiers in plant science · 2021Review
- Genetic Variation in Host-Specific Competitiveness of the SymbiontFrontiers in plant science · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Biological species may remain distinct because of genetic isolation or ecological adaptation, but these two aspects do not always coincide. To establish the nature of the species boundary within a local bacterial population, we characterized a sympatric population of the bacterium Rhizobium leguminosarum by genomic sequencing of 72 isolates. Although all strains have 16S rRNA typical of R. leguminosarum, they fall into five genospecies by the criterion of average nucleotide identity (ANI). Many genes, on plasmids as well as the chromosome, support this division: recombination of core genes has been largely within genospecies. Nevertheless, variation in ecological properties, including symbiotic host range and carbon-source utilization, cuts across these genospecies, so that none of these phenotypes is diagnostic of genospecies. This phenotypic variation is conferred by mobile genes. The genospecies meet the Mayr criteria for biological species in respect of their core genes, but do not correspond to coherent ecological groups, so periodic selection may not be effective in purging variation within them. The population structure is incompatible with traditional 'polyphasic taxonomy' that requires bacterial species to have both phylogenetic coherence and distinctive phenotypes. More generally, genomics has revealed that many bacterial species share adaptive modules by horizontal gene transfer, and we envisage a more consistent taxonomic framework that explicitly recognizes this. Significant phenotypes should be recognized as 'biovars' within species that are defined by core gene phylogeny.
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