Plant–Cyanobacteria Symbiosis: From Morphology to Practical Uses

Dear Colleagues,

Plant–cyanobacterial symbiosis is a diverse and never-ending source of new hypotheses and research themes. The symbiosis between plants (aquatic and terrestrial) and algae/microalgae with a few genera of cyanobacteria is a very ancient process with benefits for one or both organisms. The establishment of those symbioses leads to morphological structures on the plants (host) that act as interfaces and enable co-dependence throughout evolution. In general, the host provide carbohydrates and the nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria nitrogen. The high content of nitrogen makes those symbioses very competitive in nitrogen-deficient environments, which is useful for producing biofertilizer. The discovery of the recognition signals and their pathway or pathways can be very important when developing artificial cyanobacterial symbioses with crops alongside the high content in nitrogen. However, other applications of these symbioses are the phytoremediation of contaminated water and soils, as food for humans and animals, or even as sources of metabolites with bioactivities, among many others useful applications.

This Special Issue of Plants will accept original research papers, perspectives, hypotheses, opinions, reviews, modeling approaches, and methods regarding all the topics linked with plant–cyanobacterial symbioses and their potential applications.

Dr. Ana Luisa Pereira
Guest Editor

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