Although we know that plants get their Nitrogen from nitrogern-fixing bacteria scientist that put out a recent paper explains how a soil fungi Metarhizium robertsii can act as vectors to shuttle insect derived nitrogen into plants. Scientists are trying to find out in the fungi is obtaining the Nitrogen from the insects since they are enriched with nitrogen. Waxmoth larvae was used for this experiment. Results showed that up to 48% of plant nitrogen was labelled, indicating that it was in fact insect derived.
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Represents the transfer of insect-derived nitrogen to plants.
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Reference:
Christina Tobin Kåhrström. (2012). Environmental Microbiology: Fungi prey on insects to feed plants. Nature Reviews Microbiology; 10:523, doi: 10/1038/nrmicro2846
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