ArticleApplied and environmental microbiology2014
The cockroach origin of the termite gut microbiota: patterns in bacterial community structure reflect major evolutionary events.
Article in Applied and environmental microbiology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 115 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
115 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- In Vitro Studies Reveal that Pseudomonas, from Odontotermes obesus Colonies, can Function as a Defensive Mutualist as it Prevents the Weedy Fungus While Keeping the Crop Fungus Unaffected.Microbial ecology · 2022Pooled it
- Phylosymbiosis and functional redundancy in the Drosophila (Diptera: Drosophilidae) gut microbiome and its implications for host fitness.Journal of insect science (Online) · 2026Article
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- Disentangling Gut Bacterial Community Patterns inInsects · 2025Article
- Alkaline-Acid Intestine Environment Controlled by A Carbonic Anhydrase Gene Influences Synthesis of Sex Pheromone by Symbionts.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Microbiome composition and turnover in the face of complex lifecycles and bottlenecks: insights through the study of dung beetles.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
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- Termites and subsocial roaches inherited many bacterial-borne carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) from their common ancestor.Communications biology · 2024Article
- The hidden RNA viruses inMicrobial genomics · 2024Article
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- Functional similarity, despite taxonomical divergence in the millipede gut microbiota, points to a common trophic strategy.Microbiome · 2024Article
- Elucidating the structure, and composition of bacterial symbionts in the gut regions of wood-feeding termite,Frontiers in microbiology · 2024Article
- Convergence of gut microbiota in myrmecophagous amphibians.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Evaluation of rations containing bioconverted cacao pod as fiber source for small ruminant.Tropical animal health and production · 2023Article
- Influence of social lifestyles on host-microbe symbioses in the bees.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Phylosymbiosis: The Eco-Evolutionary Pattern of Insect-Symbiont Interactions.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- Selective enrichment of founding reproductive microbiomes allows extensive vertical transmission in a fungus-farming termite.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
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55 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Termites digest wood and other lignocellulosic substrates with the help of their intestinal microbiota. While the functions of the symbionts in the digestive process are slowly emerging, the origin of the bacteria colonizing the hindgut bioreactor is entirely unknown. Recently, our group discovered numerous representatives of bacterial lineages specific to termite guts in a closely related omnivorous cockroach, but it remains unclear whether they derive from the microbiota of a common ancestor or were independently selected by the gut environment. Here, we studied the bacterial gut microbiota in 34 species of termites and cockroaches using pyrotag analysis of the 16S rRNA genes. Although the community structures differed greatly between the major host groups, with dramatic changes in the relative abundances of particular bacterial taxa, we found that the majority of sequence reads belonged to bacterial lineages that were shared among most host species. When mapped onto the host tree, the changes in community structure coincided with major events in termite evolution, such as acquisition and loss of cellulolytic protists and the ensuing dietary diversification. UniFrac analysis of the core microbiota of termites and cockroaches and construction of phylogenetic tree of individual genus level lineages revealed a general host signal, whereas the branching order often did not match the detailed phylogeny of the host. It remains unclear whether the lineages in question have been associated with the ancestral cockroach since the early Cretaceous (cospeciation) or are diet-specific lineages that were independently acquired from the environment (host selection).
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.