Symbiont-Mediated Digestion of Plant Biomass in Fungus-Farming Insects

Feeding on living or dead plant material is widespread in insects. Seminal work on termites and aphids has provided profound insights into the critical nutritional role that microbes play in plant-feeding insects. Some ants, beetles, and termites, among others, have evolved the ability to use microb...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annual review of entomology 2021-01, Vol.66 (1), p.297-316
Main Authors: Li, Hongjie, Young, Soleil E, Poulsen, Michael, Currie, Cameron R
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Behavior, Animal
Biofuels
Biomass
CAZymes
evolution
Fungi
insect fungiculture
Insecta - microbiology
lignocellulose
Plants
Symbiosis
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Summary:Feeding on living or dead plant material is widespread in insects. Seminal work on termites and aphids has provided profound insights into the critical nutritional role that microbes play in plant-feeding insects. Some ants, beetles, and termites, among others, have evolved the ability to use microbes to gain indirect access to plant substrate through the farming of a fungus on which they feed. Recent genomic studies, including studies of insect hosts and fungal and bacterial symbionts, as well as metagenomics and proteomics, have provided important insights into plant biomass digestion across insect-fungal mutualisms. Not only do advances in understanding of the divergent and complementary functions of complex symbionts reveal the mechanism of how these herbivorous insects catabolize plant biomass, but these symbionts also represent a promising reservoir for novel carbohydrate-active enzyme discovery, which is of considerable biotechnological interest.
ISSN:0066-4170
1545-4487
DOI:10.1146/annurev-ento-040920-061140