Journal ArticleDOI
Facultative Symbionts in Aphids and the Horizontal Transfer of Ecologically Important Traits
TLDR
Experiments on pea aphids have demonstrated that facultative symbionts protect against entomopathogenic fungi and parasitoid wasps, ameliorate the detrimental effects of heat, and influence host plant suitability.Abstract:
Aphids engage in symbiotic associations with a diverse assemblage of heritable bacteria. In addition to their obligate nutrient-provisioning symbiont, Buchnera aphidicola, aphids may also carry one or more facultative symbionts. Unlike obligate symbionts, facultative symbionts are not generally required for survival or reproduction and can invade novel hosts, based on both phylogenetic analyses and transfection experiments. Facultative symbionts are mutualistic in the context of various ecological interactions. Experiments on pea aphids (Acyrthosiphon pisum) have demonstrated that facultative symbionts protect against entomopathogenic fungi and parasitoid wasps, ameliorate the detrimental effects of heat, and influence host plant suitability. The protective symbiont, Hamiltonella defensa, has a dynamic genome, exhibiting evidence of recombination, phage-mediated gene uptake, and horizontal gene transfer and containing virulence and toxin-encoding genes. Although transmitted maternally with high fidelity, facultative symbionts occasionally move horizontally within and between species, resulting in the instantaneous acquisition of ecologically important traits, such as parasitoid defense.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Bacterial symbionts in insects or the story of communities affecting communities
Julia Ferrari,Fabrice Vavre +1 more
TL;DR: It is argued that insect symbioses are ideal model systems for community genetics, and one conclusion is that insects' symbiotic complements are dynamic communities that affect and are affected by the communities in which they are embedded.
Journal ArticleDOI
Gut Microbiotas and Host Evolution: Scaling Up Symbiosis
TL;DR: A multilayered model for microbiota is considered to account for emerging themes in host-microbiota interactions and distinguishes between a host-adapted core microbiota, and a flexible, environmentally modulated microbial pool, differing in constraints on their maintenance and in their contributions to host adaptation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Defensive Bacteriome Symbiont with a Drastically Reduced Genome
Atsushi Nakabachi,Reiko Ueoka,Reiko Ueoka,Kenshiro Oshima,Roberta Teta,Alfonso Mangoni,Mihaela Gurgui,Neil J. Oldham,Gerhild van Echten-Deckert,Keiko Okamura,Kohei Yamamoto,Hiromitsu Inoue,Moriya Ohkuma,Yuichi Hongoh,Shin-ya Miyagishima,Masahira Hattori,Jörn Piel,Jörn Piel,Takema Fukatsu +18 more
TL;DR: It is reported that Profftella is a defensive symbiont presumably of an obligate nature with an extremely streamlined genome, suggesting their ancient and mutually indispensible association with the host.
Journal ArticleDOI
Unrelated facultative endosymbionts protect aphids against a fungal pathogen.
Piotr Łukasik,Margriet van Asch,Huifang Guo,Julia Ferrari,Julia Ferrari,H. Charles J. Godfray +5 more
TL;DR: It is shown that protection against this entomopathogen, Pandora neoaphidis, can be conferred by strains of four distantly related symbionts (in the genera Regiella,Rickettsia, Rickettsiella and Spiroplasma), which reduce mortality and also decrease fungal sporulation on dead aphids which may help protect nearby genetically identical insects.
Journal ArticleDOI
Insect symbionts as hidden players in insect–plant interactions
TL;DR: It is suggested that insect mutualists may be more important 'hidden players' in insect-plant interactions than is currently realised.
References
More filters
Book
Parasitoids: Behavioral and Evolutionary Ecology
TL;DR: This book synthesizes the work of both schools of parasitoid biology and asks how a consideration of evolutionary biology can help to understand the behavior, ecology, and diversity of the approximately one to two million species of Parasitoids found on earth.
Journal ArticleDOI
Genomics and Evolution of Heritable Bacterial Symbionts
TL;DR: Insect heritable symbionts provide some of the extremes of cellular genomes, including the smallest and the fastest evolving, raising new questions about the limits of evolution of life.
Book
Evolution of sex determining mechanisms
TL;DR: Books, as a source that may involve the facts, opinion, literature, religion, and many others are the great friends to join with.
Journal ArticleDOI
Type III Secretion Machines: Bacterial Devices for Protein Delivery into Host Cells
Jorge E. Galán,Alan Collmer +1 more
TL;DR: Several Gram-negative pathogenic bacteria have evolved a complex protein secretion system termed type III to deliver bacterial effector proteins into host cells that then modulate host cellular functions.