The data set concerns fixing bacteria belonging to the genus Sinorhizobium
(Rhizobiaceae) associated with the plant genus Medicago
(Fabaceae). It is a combination of two data sets fully available online from GenBank and
published in two recent papers (see reference below). The complete sampling
procedure is described in the Additional file 3 of the reference below. We delineated six populations
according to geographical origin (France: F, Tunisia Hadjeb:
TH, Tunisia Enfidha: TE), the host plant (M. truncatula
or similar symbiotic specificity: T, M. laciniata: L), and the
taxonomical status of bacteria (S. meliloti: mlt, S. medicae:
mdc). Each population will be called hereafter according
to the three above criteria, e.g. THLmlt is the population
sampled in Tunisia at Hadjeb from M. laciniata nodules
which include S. meliloti isolates. S. medicae interacts with
M. truncatula while S. meliloti interacts with both M. laciniata
(S. meliloti bv. medicaginis) and M. truncatula (S.
meliloti bv. meliloti). The numbers of individuals
are respectively 46 for FTmdc, 43 for FTmlt, 20 for TETmdc,
24 for TETmlt, 20 for TELmlt, 42 for THTmlt and 20
for THLmlt.
Four different intergenic spacers (IGS), IGSNOD,
IGSEXO, IGSGAB, and IGSRKP, distributed on the different
replication units of the model strain 1021 of S.
meliloti bv. meliloti had been sequenced to
characterize each bacterial isolate (DNA extraction and
sequencing procedures are described in an additional file).
It is noteworthy that the IGSNOD
marker is located within the nod gene cluster and that specific
alleles at these loci determine the ability of S. meliloti
strains to interact with either M. laciniata or M. truncatula.