How does familiarity in rhizobial interactions impact the performance of invasive and native legumes?

Mutualisms can be disrupted when non-native plants are introduced into novel environments, potentially impacting their establishment success. Introduced species reassemble mutualisms by forming associations with resident biota or maintaining familiar they co-introduced mutualists. Invasive Australian Acacia in South Africa have formed nitrogen-fixing rhizobium using both pathways. Here we examined the contributions of vs rhizobial to performance saligna across different soils within Africa’s Core Cape Subregion (CCR), and concomitant impacts exotic rhizobia on endemic legume, Psoralea pinnata . We grew each legume without Bradyrhizobium strains various CCR soil types a glasshouse. identified root nodule communities associating seedlings grown treatment combination next-generation sequencing (NGS) techniques. Our results show that affected growth performances for while addition bradyrhizobia A. , but not P. NGS data revealed associated mostly partners, regardless conditions inoculum treatment. predominantly bradyrhizobia, even inoculum, largely native African Mesorhizobium strains. study suggests already present widespread pristine soils, mutualist limitation is an impediment further acacia invasion region. The ability sanction this may good candidate restoration efforts following removal acacias habitats.