Similar cost of Hamiltonella defensa in experimental and natural aphid-endosymbiont associations.

ABSTRACT: Endosymbiont-conferred resistance to parasitoids is common in aphids, but comes at a cost to the host in the absence of parasitoids. In black bean aphids (Aphis fabae), costs in terms of reduced lifespan and lifetime reproduction were demonstrated by introducing 11 isolates of the protective symbiont Hamiltonella defensa into previously uninfected aphid clones. Transfection of H. defensa isolates into a common genetic background allows to compare the costs of different endosymbiont isolates unconfounded by host genetic variation, but has been suggested to overestimate the realized costs of the endosymbiont in natural populations, because transfection creates new and potentially maladapted host-symbiont combinations that would be eliminated by natural selection i

SUBMITTER: Kaech H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8796928 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature