Abstract The stacked contact process is a three-state spin system that describes the coevolution of a population of hosts together with their symbionts. In a nutshell, the hosts evolve according to a contact process while the symbionts evolve according to a contact process on the dynamic subset of the lattice occupied by the host population, indicating that the symbiont can only live within a h...

Coral bleaching caused by global warming is one of the major threats to coral reefs. Very recently, research has focused on the possibility of corals switching symbionts as a means of adjusting to accelerating increases in sea surface temperature. Although symbionts are clearly of fundamental importance, many aspects of coral bleaching cannot be readily explained by differences in symbionts amo...

INTRODUCTION Ticks are the most common arthropod vectors of both human and animal diseases in Europe, and the Ixodes ricinus tick species is able to transmit a large number of bacteria, viruses and parasites. Ticks may also be co-infected with several pathogens, with a subsequent high likelihood of co-transmission to humans or animals. However few data exist regarding co-infection prevalences, ...

Metacommunity membership is influenced by habitat availability and trophic requirements. However, for multitrophic horizontally transmitted symbiont communities that are closely associated with hosts, symbiont–host interactions may affect criteria in novel ways. For example, failure of beneficial services from symbionts could influence the host, turn, entire community. Understanding such host–s...

In this review, we consider the exchange of nutrients between the host plant and the bacterial microsymbiont in nitrogen-fixing legume root nodules. During nodule formation, the host tissues and the bacterial microsymbiont develop in response to each other to form a specialized tissue that maintains an environment where nitrogen fixation can occur (Brewin, 2004; Mergaert et al., 2006; Prell and...

The protobranch bivalve Solemya velum Say (Mollusca: Bivalvia) houses chemoautotrophic symbionts intracellularly within its gills. These symbionts were characterized through sequencing of polymerase chain reaction-amplified 16S rRNA coding regions and hybridization of an Escherichia coli gene probe to S. velum genomic DNA restriction fragments. The symbionts appeared to have only one copy of th...

Plant has evolved along microbial symbionts, including bacteria, archaea, fungi, and protista. These symbionts, i.e. microorganisms living in close association with the host, with their collection of intricate genetic components have improved plant fitness by adding essential and functional capabilities. Therefore, one might continuously see plant as a superorganism composed of an amalgam of bo...