Exploring Nitrogen Fixation
Office of Research
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12/03/2018
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Nebraska plant scientist Marc Libault seeks to better understand soybeans and other legumes’ mutually beneficial relationship with the bacteria rhizobia. His research could help lead to improving legumes’ efficiency at assimilating atmospheric nitrogen, called nitrogen fixation, and even to transferring the capability to other crops, such as corn.
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- [00:00:00.250]My name is Marc Libault.
- [00:00:01.360]I am an associate professor in the Department of Agronomy
- [00:00:04.600]and Horticulture at UNL.
- [00:00:06.860]So, my research currently is focusing
- [00:00:08.730]on the interaction between plant and microbes.
- [00:00:12.340]We are interested in this questions
- [00:00:13.940]because it is really now a strong interest
- [00:00:16.230]in the scientific community to better understand
- [00:00:18.250]how the plant is really interacting with the soil
- [00:00:21.260]and we want to focus on one specific interaction
- [00:00:24.560]between the plant and the microbe.
- [00:00:26.150]And that what we call the biological nitrogen fixation.
- [00:00:29.940]This fixation involve two partners:
- [00:00:32.310]the legume plant, like soybean or common bean,
- [00:00:34.770]and a type of microbe called rhizobia from the soil.
- [00:00:38.960]This interaction between legumes and rhizobia,
- [00:00:41.620]this soil bacteria,
- [00:00:42.570]is important because it helps a plant
- [00:00:44.970]to get a sturdy supply in nitrogen from the bacteria
- [00:00:48.600]that the fixation of the atmospheric nitrogen.
- [00:00:51.610]Altogether, having access to this supply
- [00:00:54.450]of nitrogen from the bacteria
- [00:00:56.190]helps the plants to grow,
- [00:00:57.830]and from the farmer, grain, for instance,
- [00:00:59.640]common bean, or soybean,
- [00:01:00.890]it's helped to decrease the use
- [00:01:02.180]of nitrogen fertilizer in the field.
- [00:01:03.937]And so we know now that nitrogen fertilizer
- [00:01:06.060]is a main source of pollution for the soil
- [00:01:08.220]but also for water,
- [00:01:10.190]and so trying to manage better the supply
- [00:01:12.800]of nitrogen fertilizer in the field is going
- [00:01:15.070]to be a benefit for everybody.
- [00:01:17.000]And, so really, the long term will be
- [00:01:18.320]to try to transfer this capability
- [00:01:19.980]of symbiosis to other crop species like wheat or corn
- [00:01:23.550]in order to, again, minimize nitrogen fertilizer.
- [00:01:27.430]So, what we're interested in is
- [00:01:29.020]to understand the first stage of interaction
- [00:01:31.640]between the plant and the microbe.
- [00:01:33.240]And, so specifically, this one cell
- [00:01:35.030]which is going to be first infected by the microbe.
- [00:01:38.230]And so we want to understand
- [00:01:39.340]how this process is going to respond to the microbe.
- [00:01:43.200]One of the new approach we are developing in the lab
- [00:01:45.510]is we are going to try to understand
- [00:01:46.710]for each cell composing the root,
- [00:01:48.590]including those cells infected by the bacteria,
- [00:01:51.660]how they are going to change the activity
- [00:01:53.870]of the genes there.
- [00:01:55.420]And so we are interested in reviewing those kind
- [00:01:57.590]of single-cell-per-single-cell interaction
- [00:02:01.090]between the plant and the microbe.
- [00:02:02.650]And so now we have invested into the field
- [00:02:05.060]of single-cell genomics,
- [00:02:06.200]which is quite new in plant science,
- [00:02:08.420]and so we are pretty excited about this.
- [00:02:10.482](upbeat music)
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