Emily A. Hornett

May 18, 2023 | frontiersin.org | Akiko Sugio |Hiroshi Arai |Emily A. Hornett |Matthew Ballinger

Introduction Gene duplications, losses, and horizontal transfers can facilitate dramatic shifts in bacterial lifestyle and capabilities (Romero and Palacios, 1997; Moran, 2002; Arnold et al., 2022). Gene loss is a dominant feature of symbiont evolution due to the selective benefits of removing metabolically costly genes (McCutcheon and Moran, 2012; McCutcheon et al., 2019). Alternatively, gene gain via horizontal transfer and duplication can lead to rapid adaptation across symbiotic species.

May 18, 2023 | frontiersin.org | Akiko Sugio |Hiroshi Arai |Emily A. Hornett |Matthew Ballinger

Introduction Gene duplications, losses, and horizontal transfers can facilitate dramatic shifts in bacterial lifestyle and capabilities (Romero and Palacios, 1997; Moran, 2002; Arnold et al., 2022). Gene loss is a dominant feature of symbiont evolution due to the selective benefits of removing metabolically costly genes (McCutcheon and Moran, 2012; McCutcheon et al., 2019). Alternatively, gene gain via horizontal transfer and duplication can lead to rapid adaptation across symbiotic species.

Mar 30, 2023 | journals.plos.org | Emily A. Hornett

Heritable endosymbionts are common in arthropods. For instance, in the Darwin Tree of Life project, sequencing of a single individual from 368 insect species revealed 93 to be infected with at least one strain of the heritable bacterium, Wolbachia [1]. This number is likely an underestimation of Wolbachia incidence, as sampling a single individual from a species may miss Wolbachia infections not present in all individuals.