| strict host-symbiont cospeciation and reductive genome evolution in insect gut bacteria. | host-symbiont cospeciation and reductive genome evolution have been identified in obligate endocellular insect symbionts, but no such example has been identified from extracellular ones. here we first report such a case in stinkbugs of the family plataspidae, wherein a specific gut bacterium is vertically transmitted via "symbiont capsule." in all of the plataspid species, females produced symbiont capsules upon oviposition and their gut exhibited specialized traits for capsule production. phylo ... | 2006 | 17032065 |
| reductive evolution of bacterial genome in insect gut environment. | obligate endocellular symbiotic bacteria of insects and other organisms generally exhibit drastic genome reduction. recently, it was shown that symbiotic gut bacteria of some stinkbugs also have remarkably reduced genomes. here, we report the complete genome sequence of such a gut bacterium ishikawaella capsulata of the plataspid stinkbug megacopta punctatissima. gene repertoire and evolutionary patterns, including at richness and elevated evolutionary rate, of the 745,590 bp genome were strikin ... | 2011 | 21737395 |