Nutritional symbionts play a major role in the ecology and evolution of insects. The recent
accumulation of knowledge on the identity, function, genomics, and phylogenetic …

Starting in 2006, surprisingly tiny genomes have been discovered from numerous bacterial
symbionts of insect hosts. Despite their size, each retains some genes that enable …

Background Symbiotic bacteria affect insect physiology and ecology. They may also mediate
insecticide resistance within their hosts and thereby impact pest and vector control practices …

Many eukaryotes have obligate associations with microorganisms that are transmitted
directly between generations. A model for heritable symbiosis is the association of aphids, a …

Diverse insects are associated with ancient bacterial symbionts, whose genomes have often
suffered drastic reduction and degeneration. In extreme cases, such symbiont genomes …

Stable endosymbiosis of a bacterium into a host cell promotes cellular and genomic
complexity. The mealybug Planococcus citri has two bacterial endosymbionts with an …

Genomic decay is a common feature of intracellular bacteria that have entered into
symbiosis with plant sap-feeding insects. This study of the whitefly Bemisia tabaci and two …

Across the tree of life, hosts have evolved mechanisms to control and mediate interactions
with symbiotic partners. We suggest that the evolution of physical structures that allow hosts …

Abstract Fifty years ago, Lynn Margulis, inspiring in early twentieth-century ideas that put
forward a symbiotic origin for some eukaryotic organelles, proposed a unified theory for the …

The thermal tolerance of an organism limits its ecological and geographic ranges and is
potentially affected by dependence on temperature-sensitive symbiotic partners. Aphid …