In this study, quantum-mechanical calculations in the framework of the Density Functional Theory (DFT) were performed to investigate the role of exchange-correlation functional in describing structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of ZnFe2O4. Herein B3LYP, PBE0, B1WC, and WC1LYP functionals implemented in the CRYSTAL17 code were considered due to the different amounts of the exact Hartree-Fock exchange fraction. In particular, the role of HF fraction on ZnFe2O4 properties was addressed for the first time. Indeed, structural, electronic, and magnetic properties indicate the dependence upon the exchange fraction, where WC1LYP with a 16% exact HF exchange exhibits the best performance compared to the other hybrid functionals. The obtained results reveal an excellent agreement for bandgap, local magnetic moment, long-range magnetic ordering, and unit-cell lattice parameters, overcoming previous theoretical studies based on local/semilocal exchange-correlation treatments. These results confirm the importance of hybrid HF/DFT with controlled HF term contribution to describe the essential features of strongly correlated materials.

Abstract Bradyrhizobium embrapense CNPSo 2833T is a nitrogen-fixing symbiont of the legume pasture Desmodium. Its draft genome contains 8,267,832 bp and 7876 CDSs. The symbiotic island includes nodulation and nitrogen fixation genes resembling the operon organization of B. japonicum. Several CDSs related to secretion proteins and stress tolerance were also identified.

Symbiotic association of several genera of bacteria collectively called as rhizobia and plants belonging to the family Leguminosae (=Fabaceae) results in the process of biological nitrogen fixation, playing a key role in global N cycling, and also bringing relevant contributions to the agriculture. Bradyrhizobium is considered as the ancestral of all nitrogen-fixing rhizobial species, probably originated in the tropics. The genus encompasses a variety of diverse bacteria, but the diversity captured in the analysis of the 16S rRNA is often low. In this study, we analyzed twelve Bradyrhizobium strains selected from previous studies performed by our group for showing high genetic diversity in relation to the described species. In addition to the 16S rRNA, five housekeeping genes (recA, atpD, glnII, gyrB and rpoB) were analyzed in the MLSA (multilocus sequence analysis) approach. Analysis of each gene and of the concatenated housekeeping genes captured a considerably higher level of genetic diversity, with indication of putative new species. The results highlight the high genetic variability associated with Bradyrhizobium microsymbionts of a variety of legumes. In addition, the MLSA approach has proved to represent a rapid and reliable method to be employed in phylogenetic and taxonomic studies, speeding the identification of the still poorly known diversity of nitrogen-fixing rhizobia in the tropics.