In the latest paper from the lab, Anna Michalik and colleagues explore how the organization of the symbiotic tissue varies across the taxonomic diversity of planthoppers.

In the paper, we have combine metagenomic and amplicon sequencing data for 44 planthopper species from 15 families with several types of microscopy to describe the diversity of symbiotic associations in the diverse and ecologically significant insect infraorder Fulgoromorpha. We have shown that ancient symbionts of planthoppers were replaced and complemented many times by diverse bacteria and fungi during the evolution of these planthoppers. We have described the diversity of tissue locations and bacteriome types, demonstrating the conserved organization of tissue harboring ancient symbionts, and puzzling variety of localizations of more recently acquired microbes.

The paper,
Michalik A., Castillo Franco D., Deng J., Szklarzewicz T., Stroiński A., Kobiałka M., Łukasik P. (2023): Variable organization of symbiont-containing tissue across planthoppers hosting different heritable endosymbionts. Frontiers in Physiology 14:471,
is available Open-Access at https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2023.1135346.

Enjoy :)

Posted: 23rd March 2023