title: Caught in the act: rapid, symbiont-driven evolution: endosymbiont infection is a mechanism generating rapid evolution in some arthropods--but how widespread is the phenomenon?
abstract: Facultative bacterial endosymbionts can transfer horizontally among lineages of their arthropod hosts, providing the recipient with a suite of traits that can lead to rapid evolutionary response, as has been recently demonstrated. But how common is symbiont-driven evolution? Evidence suggests that successful symbiont transfers are most likely within a species or among closely related species, although more distant transfers have occurred over evolutionary history. Symbiont-driven evolution need not be a function of a recent horizontal transfer, however. Many endosymbionts infect only a small proportion of a host population, but could quickly increase in frequency under favorable selection regimes. Some host species appear to accumulate a diversity of facultative endosymbionts, and it is among these species that symbiont-driven evolution should be most prevalent. It remains to be determined how frequently symbionts enable rapid evolutionary response by their hosts, but substantial ecological effects are a likely consequence whenever it does occur.
authors: Department of Entomology, University of Kentucky, S-225 Agricultural Science Center North, Lexington, KY, USA. jenawhite@uky.edu
authors: Jennifer A
authors: JA
authors: White
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001181:Arthropods / Q000235:genetics / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000502:physiology; D001419:Bacteria / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000472:pathogenicity; D005075:Biological Evolution; D005260:Female; D022761:Gene Transfer, Horizontal; D008297:Male; D010641:Phenotype; D012098:Reproduction; D012641:Selection, Genetic; D013559:Symbiosis