ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2015
Heritable symbiosis: The advantages and perils of an evolutionary rabbit hole.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 260 papers.
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Who cites it
260 citing papers in PubMed.
- Stability in flexibility: Shifting alliances stabilize the symbioses of marine animals over 150 million years.Science advances · 2026Article
- Phenotypic divergence is driven by mobile genetic elements in a heritable insect symbiont.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Genomic Evolution of Francisella: Metabolic Innovation, Endosymbiotic Transitions to Ticks, and Biogeographic History.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- The bacterial march toward symbiosis: on-ramps and off-ramps.Trends in microbiology · 2026Review
- Friends or foes: Unraveling the tsetse fly-Spiroplasma symbiosis.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2026Review
- A genomic catalog of Earth's bacterial and archaeal symbionts.Nature biotechnology · 2026Article
- Metabolic plasticity supports a flexible nutritional symbiosis in Cardiocondyla ants.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Quaternary Climatic Changes and Biogeographic Barriers Drove Codiversification in the Obligate Mutualism BetweenEcology and evolution · 2026Article
- Analysis of the genomes of a male-killingMicrobial genomics · 2026Article
- Symbiont evolutionary history underpins quality to an insect host.Journal of insect science (Online) · 2026Article
- Stable nutritional endosymbiosis across cryptic diversity of a leafhopper species complex.BMC genomics · 2026Article
- Evolutionary signals in metabolic networks of insect endosymbionts revealed through comparative topological modeling.BMC genomics · 2026Article
- Cellular remodeling of ovarian follicular epithelial cells transmits an obligate nutritional endosymbiont in a scale insect.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Positive and relaxed selection on mitochondrial DNA in parasitic versus predatory mites.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2026Article
- Experimental Sodalis infection eliminates ancient insect symbiont.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Article
- Intricate chemosymbiosis in a widespread shallow-water thyasirid clam.Science advances · 2026Article
- Two kinds of evolutionary individuals: the concept of common interest as an evolutionary foundation of dualism on biological individuality.History and philosophy of the life sciences · 2026Article
- Fidelity in co-diversified symbiosis.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Convergent extreme reductive evolution in ancient planthopper symbioses.Nature communications · 2026Article
200 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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2 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Many eukaryotes have obligate associations with microorganisms that are transmitted directly between generations. A model for heritable symbiosis is the association of aphids, a clade of sap-feeding insects, and Buchnera aphidicola, a gammaproteobacterium that colonized an aphid ancestor 150 million years ago and persists in almost all 5,000 aphid species. Symbiont acquisition enables evolutionary and ecological expansion; aphids are one of many insect groups that would not exist without heritable symbiosis. Receiving less attention are potential negative ramifications of symbiotic alliances. In the short run, symbionts impose metabolic costs. Over evolutionary time, hosts evolve dependence beyond the original benefits of the symbiosis. Symbiotic partners enter into an evolutionary spiral that leads to irreversible codependence and associated risks. Host adaptations to symbiosis (e.g., immune-system modification) may impose vulnerabilities. Symbiont genomes also continuously accumulate deleterious mutations, limiting their beneficial contributions and environmental tolerance. Finally, the fitness interests of obligate heritable symbionts are distinct from those of their hosts, leading to selfish tendencies. Thus, genes underlying the host-symbiont interface are predicted to follow a coevolutionary arms race, as observed for genes governing host-pathogen interactions. On the macroevolutionary scale, the rapid evolution of interacting symbiont and host genes is predicted to accelerate host speciation rates by generating genetic incompatibilities. However, degeneration of symbiont genomes may ultimately limit the ecological range of host species, potentially increasing extinction risk. Recent results for the aphid-Buchnera symbiosis and related systems illustrate that, whereas heritable symbiosis can expand ecological range and spur diversification, it also presents potential perils.
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