About this Research Topic

Background

Microbial symbiosis is widespread in insects, particularly in herbivorous insects that constitute important components of insect diversity. Insect herbivores are associated with wide-ranging microbial taxa, including bacteria, fungi, and protozoa, with the symbiotic relationships varying in intricacy and degree of interdependence across lineages of host insects and microbial inhabitants. The microbial partners have been demonstrated to play important roles in the biology of herbivorous insects, mediating insect–plant interactions, and contributing to the adaptive evolution and diversification of certain groups of insect herbivores. Thus, the symbiosis between microbes and herbivorous insects is a good model system to address the complex mutualistic interactions between microorganisms and animals and has received great attention.

Current studies mainly focus on economically important insect pests and social insects, which leads to incomplete knowledge of microbial diversity within herbivorous species from different insect orders. Yet, this can provide novel approaches for using microbial symbionts in alternative pest control strategies. Lastly, the specific functions and evolution of symbionts associated with many insect herbivores and mechanisms underlying microbial community assembly are still poorly understood, despite increasing access to use molecular tools.

In this Research Topic, we will compile the latest research on microbial symbiosis in a broad range of herbivorous insects. Our aim is to better understand the diversity patterns and functions of microbial communities across insect herbivores, the eco-evolutionary interactions between insect microbiomes, insect herbivores, and plants, as well as the potential of insect–microbe symbiosis in pest control and management. It is encouraging that great progress has been made in meta-omics tools, single-cell sequencing technologies, and bioinformatics methods over the past years, which is substantially improving our ability to explore the intricate symbiotic interactions between herbivorous insects and their microbial partners.

Contributions of review articles on omics techniques, applications of herbivore symbionts for pest control and original research are welcome. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Diversity of microbiota associated with herbivorous insects, especially in poorly characterized lineages and natural populations
• Microbial community structure and dynamics (temporal, spatial, etc.) driving factors, and community assembly mechanisms
• Anatomical location, transmission mode, and genomics of symbiotic microbes
• Function of microbial communities or specific symbionts
• Importance of microbial mutualism in host insect evolution
• Origin and evolution of microbial symbiosis in insect herbivores
• Potential application of microbial symbionts in modern agriculture

Keywords: Microbial ecology, microbe–insect-plant interactions, mechanisms, evolution, omics data

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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