Establishment and maintenance of aphid endosymbionts after horizontal transfer is dependent on host genotype.

ABSTRACT: Animal-associated microbial communities have important effects on host phenotypes. Individuals within and among species differ in the strains and species of microbes that they harbour, but how natural selection shapes the distribution and abundance of symbionts in natural populations is not well understood. Symbionts can be beneficial in certain environments but also impose costs on their hosts. Consequently, individuals that can or cannot associate with symbionts will be favoured under different ecological circumstances. As a result, we predict that individuals within a species vary in terms of how well they accept and maintain symbionts. In pea aphids, the frequency of endosymbionts varies among host-plant-associated populations ('biotypes'). We show that aphid genotypes from different b

SUBMITTER: Parker BJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5454236 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature