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Folk said the single origin idea would suggest that the genetic engineering of crops, such as rice and maize, to work with nitrogen-fixing bacteria is a "lower hurdle" to cross.

The results in Nature Communications find that symbiotic, nitrogen-fixing bacteria can ensure dominance among soil microbes due to its signalling-based communication with the legume plant host.

"For years, we have been finding gene fragments encoding the nitrogen-fixing nitrogenase enzyme, which appeared to belong to one particular non-cyanobacterial nitrogen fixer," says Marcel Kuypers, lead author on the study.

Most nitrogen-fixing bacteria have mechanisms to regulate dinitrogen use when fixed sources of nitrogen are available, alleviating the high energetic cost of this process.

Cambridge scientists have identified two crucial genetic factors needed to produce specialised root organs that can accommodate nitrogen-fixing bacteria in legumes such as peas and beans.