While every individual of Bemisia tabaci (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) harbors the primary symbiont (P-symbiont) Portiera, the infection frequencies of the six secondary symbionts (S-symbionts) including Hamiltonella, Arsenophonus, Cardinium, Wolbachia, Rickettsia and Fritschea vary greatly among different populations. To characterize the factors influencing the infection dynamics of the six S-symbi...

Spectral reflectance patterns of corals are driven largely by the pigments of photosynthetic symbionts within the host cnidarian. The warm inshore bays and cooler offshore reefs of Palau share a variety of coral species with differing endosymbiotic dinoflagellates (genus: Symbiodinium), with the thermally tolerant Symbiodinium trenchii (S. trenchii) (= type D1a or D1-4) predominating under the ...

Although dense animal communities at hydrothermal vents and cold seeps rely on symbioses with chemoautotrophic bacteria [1, 2], knowledge of the mechanisms underlying these chemosynthetic symbioses is still fragmentary because of the difficulty in culturing the symbionts and the hosts in the laboratory. Deep-sea Calyptogena clams harbor thioautotrophic bacterial symbionts in their gill epitheli...

While biotype, host plant and geographical location are known to affect the infection dynamics of the six secondary symbionts (S-symbionts) including Hamiltonella, Arsenophonus, Cardinium, Wolbachia, Rickettsia and Fritschea in Bemisia tabaci, it remains unclear whether sex of B. tabaci has an impact on the infection frequencies of the six S-symbionts. To address this issue, gene-specific PCR w...

Understanding whether or not corals have the flexibility to change their complement of symbionts to adapt to changing climate is an important goal in reef ecology studies. While host fidelity to a single clade of symbiont is the dominant pattern in present-day corals, current estimates of flexibility are unreliable, because few studies have measured it rigorously and with adequately sensitive g...

Aphids are severe agricultural pests that damage crops by feeding on phloem sap and vectoring plant pathogens. Chemical insecticides provide an important aphid control strategy, but alternative and sustainable control measures are required to avoid rapidly emerging resistance, environmental contamination, and the risk to humans and beneficial organisms. Aphids are dependent on bacterial symbion...

The notion of the "biological individual" is crucial to studies of genetics, immunology, evolution, development, anatomy, and physiology. Each of these biological subdisciplines has a specific conception of individuality, which has historically provided conceptual contexts for integrating newly acquired data. During the past decade, nucleic acid analysis, especially genomic sequencing and high-...

Burkholderia legume symbionts (also called α-rhizobia) are ancient in origin and are the main nitrogen-fixing symbionts of species belonging to the large genus Mimosa in Brazil. We investigated the extent of the affinity between Burkholderia and species in the tribe Mimoseae by studying symbionts of the genera Piptadenia (P.), Parapiptadenia (Pp.), Pseudopiptadenia (Ps.), Pityrocarpa (Py.), Ana...

Associations between microbes and animals are ubiquitous and hosts may benefit from harbouring microbial communities through improved resource exploitation or resistance to environmental stress. The pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum, is the host of heritable bacterial symbionts, including the obligate endosymbiont Buchnera aphidicola and several facultative symbionts. While obligate symbionts supp...

Intracellular symbiosis is known to be widespread in insects, but there are few described examples in other types of host. These symbionts carry out useful activities such as synthesizing nutrients and conferring resistance against adverse events such as parasitism. Such symbionts persist through host speciation events, being passed down through vertical transmission. Due to various evolutionar...