Anthropocene Ecology Seminar Series -- Lorena Torres-MartÃnez
Friday, November 18, 2022
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Title: Genetics of ecological specialization in the legume-rhizobium symbiosis
Microbial inoculation is the most promising strategy to promote adaptation of plant populations and crops to extreme climate events. However, it has proven difficult to incorporate as a mechanistic approach, given that plant species differentially accept the symbiotic association with microbes. Over the last three years I have been studying the evolution of specificity in mutualistic interactions between native legumes and soil bacteria (rhizobia) in California. Through genomic analyses, my collaborators and I discovered that by reshuffling accessory genomic regions rhizobia can broaden or constrain their host range, but this pattern can vary by bacterial genus.
