Year: 2022

SEXUAL SELECTION. "Male and female reproductive traits display some of the most rapid evolution observed in nature, suggesting that sexual selection as well as sexual conflict are major forms of selection. However, natural selection plays an important part as well, as environmental variation might also drive divergence in reproductive traits." https://lnkd.in/dChz5SR View in LinkedIn

METABOLIC SYMBIOSIS. "Insects that feed exclusively on nutritionally limited or persistent food sources, such as plant phloem sap, vertebrate blood, or woody materials, commonly possess symbiotic microorganisms in their guts. Symbiotic microbes are essential for host survival and reproduction and play pivotal roles in host metabolism, such as providing essential nutrients and digesting food materials." https://lnkd.in/dvW6NMZ View in LinkedIn

ESSENTIAL SYMBIONTS. "To ensure that offspring acquire these microbial partners, insects have evolved diverse mechanisms for vertical transmission of the symbionts, including ovarial transmission in aphids, egg smearing in anobiid beetles, coprophagy in termites, milk gland transmission in tsetse flies, and capsular transmission in plataspid stinkbugs." https://lnkd.in/dvW6NMZ View in LinkedIn

NICHE EXPANSION VIA SYMBIONTS. "On macroevolutionary time scales, symbiont acquisition has often enabled evolutionary diversification and ecological expansion. By acquiring maternally transmitted bacterial symbionts, many insect lineages have succeeded in unlocking new ecological niches, particularly ones that present nutritionally unbalanced diets." https://lnkd.in/dcBwzRs View in LinkedIn

EXAMPLE OF NICHE EXPANSION. "Aphids and other sap-feeding insects rely on phloem sap or xylem sap as their only food, and these diets are extremely limited in essential amino acids and some vitamins. Use of these unbalanced diets is possible because symbionts supply missing nutrients." https://lnkd.in/dcBwzRs View in LinkedIn

VERTICAL SYMBIONTS. "The vertical transmission of symbiotic microorganisms is omnipresent in insects, while the evolutionary process remains totally unclear. In many cases, host insects and symbiotic microbes have phylogenetic congruence, strongly suggesting that these symbiotic associations have been maintained by strict vertical transmission." https://lnkd.in/dvW6NMZ View in LinkedIn

OBLIGATORY SYMBIOSIS. "Virtually all terrestrial arthropod species harbor vertically transmitted microbial endosymbionts that play critical roles in the biology of their hosts. Many well-studied examples involve obligate bacterial endosymbionts (i.e., they are absolutely required for survival and reproduction) that supply their host with essential nutrients that are missing from its diet." https://lnkd.in/dn7-uaE View in LinkedIn

MATERNAL TRANSMISSION. "Diverse organisms are commonly associated with bacterial endosymbionts, which often affect hosts’ biology and phenotypes in a variety of ways. The majority of these symbionts are generally present in the host cell cytoplasm and maternally transmitted through host generations." https://lnkd.in/dzMQrDi View in LinkedIn

OPEN VERSUS CLOSED SYMBIOSIS. "All animals are colonized by microorganisms that promote the health and fitness of their animal host. Many associations are open, meaning that microorganisms can be gained by the animal from external sources and are shed from the animal back to the environment, but other associations are closed with obligate vertical transmission, generally from mother to offspring." https://lnkd.in/dzMQrDi View in LinkedIn

RARER MALE TRANSMISSION. "This conventional knowledge is countered by our discovery of intrasperm vertical transmission of nuclear-targeting bacterial symbiont (Rickettsia) in an insect (leafhopper Nephotettix cincticeps), which potentially erodes the nuclear-cytoplasmic conflict that governs the majority of endosymbiotic associations." https://lnkd.in/dzMQrDi View in LinkedIn