Symbiotic relationships of legumes and nodule bacteria on Barro Colorado Island, Panama: a review.

Abstract New data on 129 bacterial isolates were analyzed together with prior samples to characterize community-level patterns of legume-rhizobial symbiosis on Barro Colorado Island (BCI), Panama. Nodules have been sampled from 24 BCI legume species in 18 genera, representing about one quarter of the legume species and one half of the genera on the island. Most BCI legumes associated exclusively with nodule symbionts in the genus Bradyrhizobium, which comprised 86.3% of all isolates (315 of 365). Most of the remaining isolates (44 of 365) belonged to the beta-proteobacterial genus Burkholderia; these were restricted to two genera in the legume subfamily Mimosoideae. Multilocus sequence analysis indicated that BCI Bradyrhizobium strains were differentiated into at least eight lineages with deoxyribonucleic acid divergence of the same magnitude as found among currently recognized species in this bacterial genus. Two of these lineages were widely distributed across BCI legumes. One lineage was utilized by 15 host species of diverse life form (herbs, lianas, and trees) in 12 genera spanning two legume subfamilies. A second common lineage closely related to the taxon B. elkanii was associated with at least five legume genera in four separate tribes. Thus, BCI legume species from diverse clades within the family frequently share interaction with a few common lineages of nodule symbionts. However, certain host species were associated with unique symbiont lineages that have not been found on other coexisting BCI legumes. More comprehensive sampling of host taxa will be needed to characterize the overall diversity of nodule bacteria and the patterns of symbiont sharing among legumes in this community.