A5 - Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Boland
Molecular interactions between gut bacteria and their insect hosts
Abstract:
To understand the interactions of herbivorous insects with their
host plants the digestive contribution and the capability of detoxifications
of the microbial community in the gut will be studied. We envisage
extending our research on appreciating the relationships between
gut microbial community structures and function vis a vis host nutritional
diversification. Thus, spatial and temporal microbial community
profiling is foreseen to address how the bacterial community in
the insect gut is related to food quality, and how the dynamics
of symbiotic bacterial population is influenced by the insects´
feeding habits, especially the microbial contribution to the detoxification
of plant defense compounds. Culture independent microbial molecular
identification techniques like FISH, T-RFLP and TGGE would serve
as the research tools.
While several studies have reported gut-bacterial community of termites
and locusts and their contribution to the performance of the insect,
the micro-organisms from the gut of generalist herbivores remain
unexplored and rather less-acknowledged. What makes the system particularly
interesting is the general feeding habit on natural hosts that otherwise
possess secondary metabolites to deter herbivory by insects. A special
example is given by the adaptation of Spodoptora eridania
to the Lima bean, a plant rich in cyanogenic glycosides. Since also
non-adapted Spodoptora ssp. are able to feed on this plant,
albeit less successful, a comparative approach on the impact of
the gut microbes on the detoxification process seems to be promising.
The need is not only to address the direct interaction between plant
and microorganisms but also to discover the overlapping dynamics
of tritrophic levels of microorganisms, insects and plants.
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