ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2010
Loss of lipid synthesis as an evolutionary consequence of a parasitic lifestyle.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 75 papers.
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Who cites it
75 citing papers in PubMed, 204 citations in OpenAlex.
- Loss, persistence and reversal of phenotypic traits.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
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- Insect Lipid Metabolism in the Presence of Symbiotic and Pathogenic Viruses and Bacteria.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2026Review
- Lipid Metabolism in Parasitoids and Parasitized Hosts.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2026Review
- Simulated Heatwaves Affect Development of Two Congeneric Gregarious Larval-Pupal Endoparasitoids.Insects · 2025Article
- Genome size estimation and evolution trends in Acari.Experimental & applied acarology · 2025Article
- Effects of cold storage on the growth and development of Trichopria drosophilae (Hymenoptera: Diapriidae).Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Ethanol consumption mediates parasitoid resistance via effects on host metabolism.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Evolution of parasitism-related traits in nematodes.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- A rare, evolutionarily conserved venom protein benefits endoparasitism across parasitoids.Cell genomics · 2025Article
- Genomic signatures associated with the evolutionary loss of egg yolk in parasitoid wasps.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Article
- Stage-specific metabolic allocation: nutrient investment strategies duringFrontiers in nutrition · 2025Article
- Transcriptomic Insights into Host Metabolism and Immunity Changes after Parasitization byInsects · 2024Article
- Bet-hedging in parasitoids: when optimization is not the best strategy to cope with climatic extremes.Current research in insect science · 2024Review
- Metabolomics Provides New Insights into Host Manipulation Strategies byMetabolites · 2023Article
- Host Transcriptome Analysis ofInsects · 2023Article
- TheEcology and evolution · 2023Review
- Many parasitoids lack adult fat accumulation, despite fatty acid synthesis: A discussion of concepts and considerations for future research.Current research in insect science · 2023Review
15 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Evolutionary loss of traits can result from negative selection on a specific phenotype, or if the trait is selectively neutral, because the phenotype associated with the trait has become redundant. Even essential traits may be lost, however, if the resulting phenotypic deficiencies can be compensated for by the environment or a symbiotic partner. Here we demonstrate that loss of an essential me-tabolic trait in parasitic wasps has evolved through environmental compensation. We tested 24 species for the ability to synthesize lipids de novo and collected additional data from the literature. We found the majority of adult parasitoid species to be incapable of synthesizing lipids, and phylogenetic analyses showed that the evolution of lack of lipogenesis is concurrent with that of parasitism in insects. Exploitive host manipulation, in which the host is forced to synthesize lipids to the benefit of the parasitoid, presumably facilitates loss of lipogenesis through environmental compensation. Lipogenesis re-evolved in a small number of parasitoid species, particularly host generalists. The wide range of host species in which generalists are able to develop may impede effective host manipulation and could have resulted in regaining of lipogenic ability in generalist parasitoids. As trait loss through environmental compensation is unnoticed at the phenotypic level, it may be more common than currently anticipated, especially in species involved in intricate symbiotic relationships with other species.
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