Unrelated facultative endosymbionts protect aphids against a fungal pathogen

The importance of microbial facultative endosymbionts to insects is increasingly being recognized, but our understanding of how the fitness effects of infection are distributed across symbiont taxa is limited. In the pea aphid, some of the seven known species of facultative symbionts influence their...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology letters 2013-02, Vol.16 (2), p.214-218
Main Authors: Łukasik, Piotr, van Asch, Margriet, Guo, Huifang, Ferrari, Julia, Charles J. Godfray, H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acyrthosiphon pisum
Animal and plant ecology
Animal populations
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Animals
Aphididae
Aphids - genetics
Aphids - microbiology
Biological and medical sciences
endosymbiosis
Enterobacteriaceae
Entomophthorales - pathogenicity
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Fungi
General aspects
Hamiltonella defensa
Hymenoptera
inclusive fitness
Insects
Pandora neoaphidis
Pathogens
resistance
Rickettsia
Rickettsiella
secondary symbiont
Spiroplasma
Symbiosis
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The importance of microbial facultative endosymbionts to insects is increasingly being recognized, but our understanding of how the fitness effects of infection are distributed across symbiont taxa is limited. In the pea aphid, some of the seven known species of facultative symbionts influence their host's resistance to natural enemies, including parasitoid wasps and a pathogenic fungus. Here we show that protection against this entomopathogen, Pandora neoaphidis, can be conferred by strains of four distantly related symbionts (in the genera Regiella, Rickettsia, Rickettsiella and Spiroplasma). They reduce mortality and also decrease fungal sporulation on dead aphids which may help protect nearby genetically identical insects. Pea aphids thus obtain protection from natural enemies through association with a wider range of microbial associates than has previously been thought. Providing resistance against natural enemies appears to be a particularly common way for facultative endosymbionts to increase in frequency within host populations.
ISSN:1461-023X
1461-0248
DOI:10.1111/ele.12031