The Brookhaven team has been studying a species of bacteria isolated from the roots of poplar trees. “Poplar is a model species for biofuel production, in part because of its ability to grow on marginal soils unsuitable for food crops,” said scientist Daniel (Niels) van der Lelie, who leads the research program. Previous studies by the van der Lelie-Taghavi group have shown that the bacterium Enterobacter (sp. 638) increases poplar growth by as much as 40 percent.
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