Endosymbiotic microorganisms of scale insects

Abstract

"The evolutionary and ecological success of insects is largely due to their associated bacteria and fungi that expandtheir metabolic capacities or allow them to resist stress or parasites. Some of these associations possibly originatedhundreds of millions of years ago and have resulted in such interdependence that in some cases the insect andbacteria may not exist separately. This has also led to a significant reduction in the genome size of bacterial symbiontsand to the maternal transfer of symbionts to progeny. The study of insect symbionts has recently gained great interestand some of the biological functions of symbionts within hosts have been identified. Scale insects or cochineals feedon the sap of plants, which is rich in carbon but poor in nitrogen and so they require symbionts to compensate fordiet deficiencies. Some scale insects are devastating crop pests. In this article, we review the symbionts of some scaleinsects focusing on carmine- and wax cochineals, which have commercial, art and craft interest. In the cochinealsstudied we found diverse microbial communities that can synthesize amino acids, vitamins, fix nitrogen or recyclethe waste products of nitrogen metabolism."