| Title |
Unusual marine unicellular symbiosis with the nitrogen-fixing cyanobacterium UCYN-A
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Nature Microbiology, December 2016
|
| DOI | 10.1038/nmicrobiol.2016.214 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Jonathan P. Zehr, Irina N. Shilova, Hanna M. Farnelid, Maria del Carmen Muñoz-Marín, Kendra A. Turk-Kubo |
| Abstract |
Nitrogen fixation - the reduction of dinitrogen (N2) gas to biologically available nitrogen (N) - is an important source of N for terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. In terrestrial environments, N2-fixing symbioses involve multicellular plants, but in the marine environment these symbioses occur with unicellular planktonic algae. An unusual symbiosis between an uncultivated unicellular cyanobacterium (UCYN-A) and a haptophyte picoplankton alga was recently discovered in oligotrophic oceans. UCYN-A has a highly reduced genome, and exchanges fixed N for fixed carbon with its host. This symbiosis bears some resemblance to symbioses found in freshwater ecosystems. UCYN-A shares many core genes with the 'spheroid bodies' of Epithemia turgida and the endosymbionts of the amoeba Paulinella chromatophora. UCYN-A is widely distributed, and has diversified into a number of sublineages that could be ecotypes. Many questions remain regarding the physical and genetic mechanisms of the association, but UCYN-A is an intriguing model for contemplating the evolution of N2-fixing organelles. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 32 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Japan | 6 | 19% |
| United States | 4 | 13% |
| United Kingdom | 2 | 6% |
| Colombia | 1 | 3% |
| Austria | 1 | 3% |
| Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of | 1 | 3% |
| Israel | 1 | 3% |
| Netherlands | 1 | 3% |
| Germany | 1 | 3% |
| Other | 2 | 6% |
| Unknown | 12 | 38% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 23 | 72% |
| Scientists | 9 | 28% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 167 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Germany | 1 | <1% |
| Australia | 1 | <1% |
| Canada | 1 | <1% |
| Spain | 1 | <1% |
| United States | 1 | <1% |
| Unknown | 162 | 97% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 37 | 22% |
| Researcher | 28 | 17% |
| Student > Master | 23 | 14% |
| Student > Bachelor | 11 | 7% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 8 | 5% |
| Other | 26 | 16% |
| Unknown | 34 | 20% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 45 | 27% |
| Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 25 | 15% |
| Environmental Science | 24 | 14% |
| Earth and Planetary Sciences | 16 | 10% |
| Engineering | 8 | 5% |
| Other | 11 | 7% |
| Unknown | 38 | 23% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 37. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 18 April 2024.
All research outputs
#1,128,160
of 25,743,152 outputs
Outputs from Nature Microbiology
#1,053
of 2,079 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#22,759
of 425,195 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Nature Microbiology
#25
of 66 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,743,152 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 95th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
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