Legume plants are able to engage in root nodule symbiosis with nitrogen‐fixing soil
bacteria, collectively called rhizobia. This mutualistic association is highly specific, such that …

Legumes form symbiotic relationship with root-nodule, rhizobia. The nitrogen (N 2) fixed by
legumes is a renewable source and of great importance to agriculture. Symbiotic nitrogen …

Legume nodules, specialized structures for nitrogen fixation, are probably the result of
coevolution of plants and ancestral rhizobia. Among the evolutionary processes leading to …

Most plant–microbe interactions are facultative, with microbes experiencing temporally and
spatially variable selection. How this variation affects microbial evolution is poorly …

The mutualism between legumes and rhizobia is clearly the product of past coevolution.
However, the nature of ongoing evolution between these partners is less clear. To …

In nitrogen-fixing symbiosis, plant sanctions against ineffective bacteria have been
demonstrated in previous studies performed on soybean and yellow bush lupin, both …

Rhizobia are ecologically important, facultative plant-symbiotic microbes. In nature, there is
a large variability in the association of rhizobial strains and host plants of the same species …

Biodiversity within ecological communities has been shown to influence plant resistance
and tolerance to herbivory, and may strongly interact with climate change. However, the …

Efficient host control predicts the extirpation of ineffective symbionts, but they are
nonetheless widespread in nature. We tested three hypotheses for the maintenance of …

Genetic variation for functionally important traits is ubiquitous in communities of nitrogen‐
fixing rhizobia, and while some studies have described significant effects of diversity on the …