ArticleOecologia2015
Gut microbes may facilitate insect herbivory of chemically defended plants.
Article in Oecologia, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 139 papers.
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Who cites it
139 citing papers in PubMed, 286 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- Multifunctional Properties of the Gut Symbiont Enterococcus gallinarum Associated With Eudocima materna Caterpillars in Host Plant Detoxification.Journal of basic microbiology · 2026Article
- Influence of Plant Secondary Metabolites on intake, Detoxification Costs, and Microbial Communities in Deer.Journal of chemical ecology · 2026Article
- Recombinant lectin from the coastal jack bean Canavalia rosea and its anti-bruchid activity towards Callosobruchus maculatus (Chrysomelidae: Coleoptera).Die Naturwissenschaften · 2026Article
- Ecological Drivers of Microbiota Diversity in the Pharmacophagous Turnip Sawfly.Environmental microbiology · 2026Article
- Insects as a New Source of Plant Growth Promoting Bacteria - Review.Microbial ecology · 2026Review
- Forage quality shapes physiological and gut microbial responses in moose (Alces alces) of Isle Royale National Park.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Shaped by Fire: Unravelling the Impact of Fire on Lizard Gut Microbiome.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Host genetics and environment shape the gut microbiome ofFrontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Gut Symbiont-Driven Adaptive Evolution of Herbivorous Insect-Plant Interactions and Its Ecological Implications.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Review
- Article
- The effects of the previous host on the adaptability of Tetranychus turkestani on soybean and its microbiome.Experimental & applied acarology · 2025Article
- Dynamics of bacterial communities across developmental stages of the litchi stink bug, Tessaratoma javanica.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Effect of Oceanic Islands on an Insect Symbiont Genome in Transition to a Host-Restricted Lifestyle.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Microbial Symbiosis in Lepidoptera: Analyzing the Gut Microbiota for Sustainable Pest Management.Biology · 2025Review
- Guava root exudate-driven rhizosphere microorganisms changes transmitted to foliar-feeding insects influence their feeding behaviour.Plant biotechnology journal · 2025Article
- Microbial dynamics across tri-trophic systems: insights from plant-herbivore-predator interactions.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2025Article
- Gut bacterium Acinetobacter sp. assists Camellia weevil with host plant adaptation by degrading tea saponin via the benzoate pathway.Microbiome · 2025Article
79 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The majority of insect species consume plants, many of which produce chemical toxins that defend their tissues from attack. How then are herbivorous insects able to develop on a potentially poisonous diet? While numerous studies have focused on the biochemical counter-adaptations to plant toxins rooted in the insect genome, a separate body of research has recently emphasized the role of microbial symbionts, particularly those inhabiting the gut, in plant-insect interactions. Here we outline the "gut microbial facilitation hypothesis," which proposes that variation among herbivores in their ability to consume chemically defended plants can be due, in part, to variation in their associated microbial communities. More specifically, different microbes may be differentially able to detoxify compounds toxic to the insect, or be differentially resistant to the potential antimicrobial effects of some compounds. Studies directly addressing this hypothesis are relatively few, but microbe-plant allelochemical interactions have been frequently documented from non-insect systems-such as soil and the human gut-and thus illustrate their potential importance for insect herbivory. We discuss the implications of this hypothesis for insect diversification and coevolution with plants; for example, evolutionary transitions to host plant groups with novel allelochemicals could be initiated by heritable changes to the insect microbiome. Furthermore, the ecological implications extend beyond the plant and insect herbivore to higher trophic levels. Although the hidden nature of microbes and plant allelochemicals make their interactions difficult to detect, recent molecular and experimental techniques should enable research on this neglected, but likely important, aspect of insect-plant biology.
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Registered trials
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.