Apex Predator Nematodes and Meso-Predator Bacteria Consume Their Basal Insect Prey through Discrete Stages of Chemical Transformations.

ABSTRACT: Microbial symbiosis drives physiological processes of higher-order systems, including the acquisition and consumption of nutrients that support symbiotic partner reproduction. Metabolic analytics provide new avenues to examine how chemical ecology, or the conversion of existing biomass to new forms, changes over a symbiotic life cycle. We applied these approaches to the nematode Steinernema carpocapsae, its mutualist bacterium, Xenorhabdus nematophila, and the insects they infect. The nematode-bacterium pair infects, kills, and reproduces in an insect until nutrients are depleted. To understand the conversion of insect biomass over time into either nematode or bacterium biomass, we integrated information from trophic, metabolomic, and gene regulation analyses. Trophic analysis established

SUBMITTER: Mucci NC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9241642 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature