Mertcan Esti

Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology

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Shengjie Li

Dalian Polytechnic University

Marcel M. M. Kuypers

Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology

Hannah K. Marchant

Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology

Jana Milucka

Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology

Daniela Tienken

Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology

Wiebke Mohr

Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology

Miriam Philippi

Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology

Boran Kartal

Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology

Abiel T. Kidane

Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology

Alexandra Kraberg

Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung

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Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology

Max Planck Society

Helmholtz Centre Potsdam - GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences

Radboud University Nijmegen

University of Bremen

University of Vienna

Dalian Polytechnic University

Dalian Ocean University

University of Calgary

Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (China)

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Rhizobia–diatom symbiosis fixes missing nitrogen in the ocean

Nature (2024)

Bernhard Tschitschko Mertcan Esti Miriam Philippi Abiel T. Kidane Sten Littmann

Abstract Nitrogen (N 2 ) fixation in oligotrophic surface waters is the main source of new nitrogen to the ocean 1 and has a key role in fuelling the biological carbon pump 2 . Oceanic N 2 fixation has been attributed almost exclusively to cyanobacteria, even though genes encoding nitrogenase, the enzyme that fixes N 2 into ammonia, are widespread among marine bacteria and archaea 3–5 . Little is known about these non-cyanobacterial N 2 fixers, and direct proof that they can fix nitrogen in the ocean has so far been lacking. Here we report the discovery of a non-cyanobacterial N 2 -fixing symbiont, ‘ Candidatus Tectiglobus diatomicola’, which provides its diatom host with fixed nitrogen in return for photosynthetic carbon. The N 2 -fixing symbiont belongs to the order Rhizobiales and its association with a unicellular diatom expands the known hosts for this order beyond the well-known N 2 -fixing rhizobia–legume symbioses on land 6 . Our results show that the rhizobia–diatom symbioses can contribute as much fixed nitrogen as can cyanobacterial N 2 fixers in the tropical North Atlantic, and that they might be responsible for N 2 fixation in the vast regions of the ocean in which cyanobacteria are too rare to account for the measured rates.

10.1038/s41586-024-07495-w

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