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 …

Symbiosis has played a major role in eukaryotic evolution beyond the origin of the
eukaryotic cell. Thus, organisms across the tree of life are associated with diverse microbial …

Nitrogen acquisition is a major challenge for herbivorous animals, and the repeated origins
of herbivory across the ants have raised expectations that nutritional symbionts have shaped …

An evolutionary consequence of uniparentally transmitted symbiosis is degradation of
symbiont genomes. We use the system of aphids and their maternally inherited obligate …

Many insects depend on obligate mutualistic bacteria to provide essential nutrients lacking
from their diet. Most aphids, whose diet consists of phloem, rely on the bacterial …

Sumx Insects evolve dependence—often extreme—on microbes for nutrition. This includes
cases in which insects harbor multiple endosymbionts that function collectively as a …

Symbiotic microbes can enable their host to access untapped nutritional resources but may
also constrain niche space by promoting specialization. Here, we reconstruct functional …

Symbiotic associations with bacteria have facilitated important evolutionary transitions in
insects and resulted in long‐term obligate interactions. Recent evidence suggests that these …

Insects have established mutualistic symbiotic interactions with microorganisms that are
beneficial to both host and symbiont. Many insects have exploited these symbioses to …

Pea aphids (Acyrthosiphon pisum) are insects containing genes of bacterial origin with
putative functions in peptidoglycan (PGN) metabolism. Of these, rlpA1-5, amiD, and ldcA are …