Mutualism between the desert locust Schistocerca gregaria and its gut microbiota

TL;DR: Priorities for future research include elucidation of microbial contributions to detoxification, especially of plant allelochemicals in phytophagous insects, and resistance to pathogens; as well as their role in among-insect communication; and the potential value of manipulation of the microbiota to control insect pests.

TL;DR: This insect-order-spanning investigation of the gut microbiota provides insights into the relationships between insects and their gut bacterial communities.

TL;DR: The stinkbug-Burkholderia relationship may be regarded as an insect analogue of the well-known symbioses between plants and soil-associated microbes, such as legume-Rhizobium and alder-Frankia relationships, and the evolutionary relevance of the mutualistic but promiscuous insect-microbe association is discussed.

TL;DR: It is proposed that the potential functions of microbial symbionts in facilitating or restricting the use of host plants are constrained by their location (intracellular, gut or environmental), and by the fidelity of their associations with insect host lineages.

TL;DR: Behavioral tests show that essentially phenol, guaiacol, and the mixture of the three products tend to increase the aggregation behavior in both species and thus act as “cohesion pheromones.”

TL;DR: There are distinct strain-dependent differences in phase characteristics and their amplitudes even in the same species, and no major break-through was achieved in the putative endocrine control of locust phase polymorphism.

TL;DR: Bacteria in the anterior regions of the Gut of Schistocerca gregaria were restricted to the lumen and inside of the peritrophic membrane, however, in the hindgut, bacteria were also associated with the cuticular lining.

TL;DR: Since there was no apparent difference in gut or whole animal physiology between axenic and conventional locusts, the hypothesis was made that an antifungal toxin, produced by the gut bacterial flora, was responsible for the above observations.