Fifty rhizobial isolates of Lathyrus and Oxytropis collected from northern regions of China were studied in their genotypic characterization based upon analyses of ARDRA, 16S-23S IGS PCR-RFLP, TP-RAPD, MLEE, sequences of 16S rDNA gene and housekeeping genes of atpD, recA and glnII. The results demonstrated that most of the Lathyrus rhizobia belonged to Rhizobium and most of the Oxytropis rhizobia belonged to Sinorhizobium. A novel group of Rhizobium sp. I and S. meliloti were identified as the main microsymbionts respectively associated with Lathyrus and Oxytropis species in the collection area, which were new associations between rhizobia and the mentioned hosts. This study also provides new evidence for biogeography of rhizobia.
SUI XinHua, HAN LiLi, WANG EnTao, JIANG Feng, LIU YiHai & CHEN WenXin State Key Laboratory for AgroBiotechnology, Key Laboratory of Agro-Microbial Resource and Application, Ministry of Agricul- ture/College of Biological Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China
