Metabolic Cost of a Nutritional Symbiont Manifests in Delayed Reproduction in a Grain Pest Beetle
Animals engage in a plethora of mutualistic interactions with microorganisms that can confer various benefits to their host but can also incur context-dependent costs. The sawtoothed grain beetle <i>Oryzaephilus surinamensis</i> harbors nutritional, intracellular Bacteroidetes bacteria t...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2020-10-01
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| Series: | Insects |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/11/10/717 |
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| author | Tobias Engl Thorsten H. P. Schmidt Sthandiwe Nomthandazo Kanyile Dagmar Klebsch |
| author_facet | Tobias Engl Thorsten H. P. Schmidt Sthandiwe Nomthandazo Kanyile Dagmar Klebsch |
| author_sort | Tobias Engl |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Animals engage in a plethora of mutualistic interactions with microorganisms that can confer various benefits to their host but can also incur context-dependent costs. The sawtoothed grain beetle <i>Oryzaephilus surinamensis</i> harbors nutritional, intracellular Bacteroidetes bacteria that supplement precursors for the cuticle synthesis and thereby enhance desiccation resistance of its host. Experimental elimination of the symbiont impairs cuticle formation and reduces fitness under desiccation stress but does not disrupt the host’s life cycle. For this study, we first demonstrated that symbiont populations showed the strongest growth at the end of metamorphosis and then declined continuously in males, but not in females. The symbiont loss neither impacted the development time until adulthood nor adult mortality or lifespan. Furthermore, lifetime reproduction was not influenced by the symbiont presence. However, symbiotic females started to reproduce almost two weeks later than aposymbiotic ones. Thus, symbiont presence incurs a metabolic and context-dependent fitness cost to females, probably due to a nutrient allocation trade-off between symbiont growth and sexual maturation. The <i>O. surinamensis</i> symbiosis thereby represents an experimentally amenable system to study eco-evolutionary dynamics under variable selection pressures. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T15:29:28Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-5052d95de66c4c55857d3903cd82c5ce |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2075-4450 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T15:29:28Z |
| publishDate | 2020-10-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Insects |
| spelling | doaj.art-5052d95de66c4c55857d3903cd82c5ce2023-11-20T17:45:02ZengMDPI AGInsects2075-44502020-10-01111071710.3390/insects11100717Metabolic Cost of a Nutritional Symbiont Manifests in Delayed Reproduction in a Grain Pest BeetleTobias Engl0Thorsten H. P. Schmidt1Sthandiwe Nomthandazo Kanyile2Dagmar Klebsch3Evolutionary Ecology, Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution, Johannes Gutenberg-University, 55128 Mainz, GermanyEvolutionary Ecology, Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution, Johannes Gutenberg-University, 55128 Mainz, GermanyEvolutionary Ecology, Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution, Johannes Gutenberg-University, 55128 Mainz, GermanyEvolutionary Ecology, Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution, Johannes Gutenberg-University, 55128 Mainz, GermanyAnimals engage in a plethora of mutualistic interactions with microorganisms that can confer various benefits to their host but can also incur context-dependent costs. The sawtoothed grain beetle <i>Oryzaephilus surinamensis</i> harbors nutritional, intracellular Bacteroidetes bacteria that supplement precursors for the cuticle synthesis and thereby enhance desiccation resistance of its host. Experimental elimination of the symbiont impairs cuticle formation and reduces fitness under desiccation stress but does not disrupt the host’s life cycle. For this study, we first demonstrated that symbiont populations showed the strongest growth at the end of metamorphosis and then declined continuously in males, but not in females. The symbiont loss neither impacted the development time until adulthood nor adult mortality or lifespan. Furthermore, lifetime reproduction was not influenced by the symbiont presence. However, symbiotic females started to reproduce almost two weeks later than aposymbiotic ones. Thus, symbiont presence incurs a metabolic and context-dependent fitness cost to females, probably due to a nutrient allocation trade-off between symbiont growth and sexual maturation. The <i>O. surinamensis</i> symbiosis thereby represents an experimentally amenable system to study eco-evolutionary dynamics under variable selection pressures.https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/11/10/717bacteroidetescuticle synthesismetabolic and fitness costOryzaephilus surinamensissawtoothed grain beetlesymbiosis |
| spellingShingle | Tobias Engl Thorsten H. P. Schmidt Sthandiwe Nomthandazo Kanyile Dagmar Klebsch Metabolic Cost of a Nutritional Symbiont Manifests in Delayed Reproduction in a Grain Pest Beetle Insects bacteroidetes cuticle synthesis metabolic and fitness cost Oryzaephilus surinamensis sawtoothed grain beetle symbiosis |
| title | Metabolic Cost of a Nutritional Symbiont Manifests in Delayed Reproduction in a Grain Pest Beetle |
| title_full | Metabolic Cost of a Nutritional Symbiont Manifests in Delayed Reproduction in a Grain Pest Beetle |
| title_fullStr | Metabolic Cost of a Nutritional Symbiont Manifests in Delayed Reproduction in a Grain Pest Beetle |
| title_full_unstemmed | Metabolic Cost of a Nutritional Symbiont Manifests in Delayed Reproduction in a Grain Pest Beetle |
| title_short | Metabolic Cost of a Nutritional Symbiont Manifests in Delayed Reproduction in a Grain Pest Beetle |
| title_sort | metabolic cost of a nutritional symbiont manifests in delayed reproduction in a grain pest beetle |
| topic | bacteroidetes cuticle synthesis metabolic and fitness cost Oryzaephilus surinamensis sawtoothed grain beetle symbiosis |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/11/10/717 |
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