Journal
ENTOMOLOGIA EXPERIMENTALIS ET APPLICATA
Volume 147, Issue 2, Pages 160-166Publisher
WILEY-BLACKWELL
DOI: 10.1111/eea.12057
Keywords
Thermobia domestica; Thysanura; Lepismatidae; fungus; bacterium; vertical transmission; transovarial transmission; aggregation
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Funding
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)-PGSD Fellowship
- NSERC-Industrial Research Chair
- Contech Enterprises
- Global Forest Science
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The firebrat, Thermobia domestica (Packard) (Thysanura: Lepismatidae), aggregates in response to the faeces of conspecifics. This aggregation response is mediated by two microbial symbionts, the bacterium Enterobacter cloacae (Jordan) Hormaeche & Edwards (Enterobacteriaceae) and the fungus Mycotypha microspora Fenner (Mucorales). Our objective was to determine how these microbes are transmitted between firebrats. We produced fluorescently labelled E.cloacae and M.microspora and presented them to firebrats. Firebrats consumed large quantities of these labelled microbes and deposited them with their faeces where they proliferated rapidly. Firebrats did not harbour E.cloacae or M.microspora within their ovarioles or eggs, and thus cannot transmit them transovarially. Instead, firebrats acquired them horizontally whenever they fed on microbe-contaminated material, such as faeces, faeces-contaminated paper, or egg surfaces. Firebrats moult throughout their life, and with each moult they shed the cuticular lining of their digestive tract and likely any microbes residing therein. Because firebrats remain in close contact and live in groups of mixed age and gender, newly moulted individuals can readily re-acquire E.cloacae or M.microspora from group members. This ensures the perpetuation of their microbial aggregation and arrestment signal.
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