The Gut Microbiota of the Insect Infraorder Pentatomomorpha (Hemiptera: Heteroptera) for the Light of Ecology and Evolution.

The stinkbugs of the infraorder Pentatomomorpha are a group of important plant sap-feeding insects, which host diverse microorganisms. Some are located in their complex morphological midgut compartments, while some within the specialized bacteriomes of insect hosts. This perpetuation of symbioses through host generations is reinforced via the diverse routes of vertical transmission or environmental acquisition of the symbionts. These symbiotic partners, reside either through the extracellular associations in midgut or intracellular associations in specialized cells, not only have contributed nutritional benefits to the insect hosts but also shaped their ecological and evolutionary basis. The stinkbugs and gut microbe symbioses present a valuable model that provides insights into symbiotic interactions between agricultural insects and microorganisms and may become potential agents for insect pest management.

Insecticide applications to soil contribute to the development of Burkholderia mediating insecticide resistance in stinkbugs.

Some soil Burkholderia strains are capable of degrading the organophosphorus insecticide, fenitrothion, and establish symbiosis with stinkbugs, making the host insects fenitrothion-resistant. However, the ecology of the symbiotic degrading Burkholderia adapting to fenitrothion in the free-living environment is unknown. We hypothesized that fenitrothion applications affect the dynamics of fenitrothion-degrading Burkholderia, thereby controlling the transmission of symbiotic degrading Burkholderia from the soil to stinkbugs. We investigated changes in the density and diversity of culturable Burkholderia (i.e. symbiotic and nonsymbiotic fenitrothion degraders and nondegraders) in fenitrothion-treated soil using microcosms. During the incubation with five applications of pesticide, the density of the degraders increased from less than the detection limit to around 10(6)/g of soil. The number of dominant species among the degraders declined with the increasing density of degraders; eventually, one species predominated. This process can be explained according to the competitive exclusion principle using V(max) and K(m) values for fenitrothion metabolism by the degraders. We performed a phylogenetic analysis of representative strains isolated from the microcosms and evaluated their ability to establish symbiosis with the stinkbug Riptortus pedestris. The strains that established symbiosis with R. pedestris were assigned to a cluster including symbionts commonly isolated from stinkbugs. The strains outside the cluster could not necessarily associate with the host. The degraders in the cluster predominated during the initial phase of degrader dynamics in the soil. Therefore, only a few applications of fenitrothion could allow symbiotic degraders to associate with their hosts and may cause the emergence of symbiont-mediated insecticide resistance.

Population Genetic Baseline of the First Plataspid Stink Bug Symbiosis (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Plataspidae) Reported in North America.

The stink bug, Megacopta cribraria, has an obligate relationship with a bacterial endosymbiont which allows it to feed on legumes. The insect is a pest of soybeans in Asia and was first reported in the Western Hemisphere in October 2009 on kudzu vine, Pueraria montana, in North Georgia, USA. By October 2010 M. cribraria had been confirmed in 80 counties in Georgia actively feeding on kudzu vine and soybean plants. Since the symbiosis may support the bug's ecological expansions, a population genetic baseline for the symbiosis was developed from mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and nuclear DNA (nuDNA) gene sequence collected from each insect and its primary g- proteobacterium and secondary a -proteobacterium endosymbionts. A single mitochondrial DNA haplotype was found in all insects sampled in Georgia and South Carolina identified as GA1. The GAI haplotype appears to be rapidly dispersing across Georgia and into contiguous states. Primary and secondary endosymbiont gene sequences from M. cribraria in Georgia were the same as those found in recently collected Megacopta samples from Japan. The implications of these data are discussed.