Sap-sucking insects such as aphids and leafhoppers generally have microbial symbionts that are maternally inherited via transovarial transmission to insure the persistence of these obligate microbial partners. The host insects' adaptations for protecting the long-associated, obligate symbionts from insect immune responses and for transovarial transmission may have opened the door for other non-obligate microbes such as plant pathogens and "secondary" (non-obligate) microbes to periodically invade the host insect. Morevover, the long evolutionary associations of obligate symbionts with their host insects may have enabled some plant viruses to take advantage of symbiont physiology to facilitate vector transmission of viruses.
Keywords: bacteria, sap-feeding insects
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