Experimental evidence is accumulating that endosymbionts of phytophagous insects may transmit horizontally via plants. Intracellular symbionts known for manipulating insect reproduction and altering fitness (Rickettsia, Cardinium, Wolbachia, and bacterial parasite of the leafhopper Euscelidius variegatus) have been found to travel from infected insects into plants. Other insects, either of the ...

The marine bryozoan, Bugula neritina, is the source of the bryostatins, a family of macrocyclic lactones with anticancer activity. Bryostatins have long been suspected to be bacterial products. B. neritina harbors the uncultivated gamma proteobacterial symbiont "Candidatus Endobugula sertula." In this work several lines of evidence are presented that show that the symbiont is the most likely so...

Symbioses between eukaryotes and sulfur-oxidizing (thiotrophic) bacteria have convergently evolved multiple times. Although well described in at least eight classes of metazoan animals, almost nothing is known about the evolution of thiotrophic symbioses in microbial eukaryotes (protists). In this study, we characterized the symbioses between mouthless marine ciliates of the genus Kentrophoros,...

Phytophagous stink bugs are globally-distributed and many harbor vertically-inherited bacterial symbionts that are extracellular, yet little is known about how the symbiont's genomes have evolved under this transmission strategy. Genome reduction is common in insect intracellular symbionts but limited genome sampling of the extracellular symbionts of distantly-related stink bugs has precluded i...

Citation: Fróes AM, Freitas TC, Vidal L, Appolinario LR, Leomil L, Venas T, Campeão ME, Silva CJF, Moreira APB, Berlinck RGS, Thompson FL and Thompson CC (2018) Genomic Attributes of Novel Symbiont Pseudovibrio brasiliensis sp. nov. Isolated From the Sponge Arenosclera brasiliensis. Front. Mar. Sci. 5:81. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2018.00081 Genomic Attributes of Novel Symbiont Pseudovibrio brasiliens...

The nutritional symbiosis between aphids and their obligate symbiont, Buchnera aphidicola, is often characterized as a highly functional partnership in which the symbiont provides the host with essential nutrients. Despite this, some aphid lineages exhibit dietary requirements for nutrients typically synthesized by Buchnera, suggesting that some aspect of the symbiosis is disrupted. To examine ...

In symbiotic systems, patterns of symbiont diversity and selectivity are crucial for the understanding of fundamental ecological processes such as dispersal and establishment. The lichen genus Nephroma (Peltigerales, Ascomycota) has a nearly cosmopolitan distribution and is thus an attractive model for the study of symbiotic interactions over a wide range of spatial scales. In this study, we an...

Many insects rely on bacterial symbionts with tiny genomes specialized for provisioning nutrients lacking in host diets. Xylem sap and phloem sap are both deficient as insect diets, but differ dramatically in nutrient content, potentially affecting symbiont genome evolution. For sap-feeding insects, sequenced symbiont genomes are available only for phloem-feeding examples from the suborder Ster...

The brown alga Saccharina japonica (Areschoug) Lane, Mayes, Druehl et Saunders is a highly polymorphic representative of the family Laminariaceae, inhabiting the northwest Pacific region. We have obtained 16S rRNA sequence data in symbiont microorganisms of the typical form (TYP) of S. japonica and its common morphological varieties, known as "longipes" (LON) and "shallow-water" (SHA), which sh...

Symbioses between dinoflagellates in the genus Symbiodinium (commonly referred to as zooxanthellae) and scleractinian corals are an essential feature for the maintenance of coral reefs. The fine-scale diversity and population structure of the zooxanthellae inhabiting the coral Pocillopora meandrina, a major reef building species in Polynesia, was examined. We used two polymorphic microsatellite...