Genetic structure and symbiotic characteristics of a bradyrhizobium population recovered from a pasture soil

We examined the genetic structure and symbiotic characteristics of Bradyrhizobium isolates recovered from four legume species (Lupinus albus [white lupine], Lupinus angustifolius [blue lupine], Ornithopus compressus [yellow serradella], and Macroptilium atropurpureum [sirato]) grown in an Oregon soil. We established that multilocus enzyme electrophoresis (MLEE) can provide insights into the genetic relatedness among Bradyrhizobium strains by showing a positive correlation (r = >/=0.90) between the relatedness of Bradyrhizobium japonicum strains determined by MLEE at 13 enzyme loci and that determined by other workers using either DNA-DNA hybridization or DNA sequence divergence estimates. MLEE identified 17 electrophoretic types (ETs) among 95 Bradyrhizobium isolates recovered from the four hosts. Although the overall genetic diversity among the ETs (H = 0.69) is one of the largest measured to date in a local population of any soilborne bacterial species, there was no evidence of multilocus structure (linkage disequilibrium) within the population. The majority of the isolates (73%) were represented by two closely related ETs (2 and 3) which dominated the root nodules of white lupine, serradella, and siratro. In contrast, ET1 dominated nodules of blue lupine. Although representative isolates from all of the 17 ETs nodulated siratro, white lupine, blue lupine, and big trefoil (Lotus pedunculatus), they were either completely ineffective or poorly effective at fixing nitrogen on these hosts. Despite the widespread use of serradella as a surrogate host for lupine-nodulating bradyrhizobia, 7 of the 17 ETs did not nodulate this host, and the remaining 10 ETs were ineffective at fixing nitrogen.