Feeding on living or dead plant material is widespread in insects. Seminal work on termites
and aphids has provided profound insights into the critical nutritional role that microbes play …

Current work in experimental biology revolves around a handful of animal species. Studying
only a few organisms limits science to the answers that those organisms can provide. Nature …

Background The cuticular microbiomes of Acromyrmex leaf-cutting ants pose a conundrum
in microbiome biology because they are freely colonisable, and yet the prevalence of the …

Highlights•We tested whether gut microbes influence nestmate recognition in leaf-cutting
ants.•Gut microbiota suppression appears to affect aggression and cuticular …

Microbial drinking water quality in premise plumbing systems (PPSs) strongly affects public
health. Bacterial community structure is the essential aspect of microbial water quality …

During crop domestication, human farmers traded greater productivity for higher crop
vulnerability outside specialized cultivation conditions. We found a similar domestication …

Social insects maximize resource acquisition and allocation through division of labor and
associations with microbial symbionts. Colonies divide labor among castes and subcastes …

Animals continuously encounter microorganisms that are essential for health or cause
disease. They are thus challenged to control harmful microbes while allowing the acquisition …

Recent reports indicate that the health of our planet is getting worse and that genuine
transformative changes are pressing. So far, efforts to ameliorate Earth's ecosystem crises …

Rhizobiales are well-known plant-root nitrogen-fixing symbionts, but the functions of insect-
associated Rhizobiales are poorly understood. We obtained genomes of three strains …