Frequent Drivers, Occasional Passengers: Signals of Symbiont-Driven Seasonal Adaptation and Hitchhiking in the Pea Aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum.

ABSTRACT: Insects harbor a variety of maternally inherited bacterial symbionts. As such, variation in symbiont presence/absence, in the combinations of harbored symbionts, and in the genotypes of harbored symbiont species provide heritable genetic variation of potential use in the insects' adaptive repertoires. Understanding the natural importance of symbionts is challenging but studying their dynamics over time can help to elucidate the potential for such symbiont-driven insect adaptation. Toward this end, we studied the seasonal dynamics of six maternally transferred bacterial symbiont species in the multivoltine pea aphid (Acyrthosiphon pisum). Our sampling focused on six alfalfa fields in southeastern Pennsylvania, and spanned 14 timepoints within the 2012 growing season, in addition to t

SUBMITTER: Carpenter M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8466206 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature