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An endosymbiont or endobiont is an organism that lives within the body or cells of another organism. Typically the two organisms are in a mutualistic relationship. Examples are nitrogen-fixing bacteria, which live in the root nodules of legumes, single-cell algae inside reef-building corals, and bacterial endosymbionts that provide essential nutrients to insects.
Symbiosis is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction, between two organisms of different species. The two organisms, termed symbionts, can be either in a mutualistic, a commensalistic, or a parasitic relationship. In 1879, Heinrich Anton de Bary defined symbiosis as "the living together of unlike organisms".
The Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology is located on Beutenberg Campus in Jena, Germany. It was founded in March 1996 and is one of 80 institutes of the Max Planck Society. Chemical ecology examines the role of chemical signals that mediate the interactions between plants, animals, and their environment, as well as the evolutionary and behavioral consequences of these interactions. The managing director of the institute is Jonathan Gershenzon.
Colleen Marie Cavanaugh is an American academic microbiologist best known for her studies of hydrothermal vent ecosystems. As of 2002, she is the Edward C. Jeffrey Professor of Biology in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and is affiliated with the Marine Biological Laboratory and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Cavanaugh was the first to propose that the deep-sea giant tube worm, Riftia pachyptila, obtains its food from bacteria living within its cells, an insight which she had as a graduate student at Harvard. Significantly, she made the connection that these chemoautotrophic bacteria were able to play this role through their use of chemosynthesis, the biological oxidation of inorganic compounds to synthesize organic matter from very simple carbon-containing molecules, thus allowing organisms such as the bacteria to exist in deep ocean without sunlight.
Nancy A. Moran is an American evolutionary biologist and entomologist, University of Texas Leslie Surginer Endowed Professor, and co-founder of the Yale Microbial Diversity Institute. Since 2005, she has been a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. Her seminal research has focused on the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum and its bacterial symbionts including Buchnera (bacterium). In 2013, she returned to the University of Texas at Austin, where she continues to conduct research on bacterial symbionts in aphids, bees, and other insect species. She has also expanded the scale of her research to bacterial evolution as a whole. She believes that a good understanding of genetic drift and random chance could prevent misunderstandings surrounding evolution. Her current research goal focuses on complexity in life-histories and symbiosis between hosts and microbes, including the microbiota of insects.
Bill S. Hansson is a Swedish neuroethologist. From June 2014 until June 2020, he was vice president of the Max Planck Society.
Wilhelm Boland is a German chemist.
Ian Thomas Baldwin is an American ecologist.
David G. Heckel is an American entomologist.
Sodalis is a genus of bacteria within the family Pectobacteriaceae. This genus contains several insect endosymbionts and also a free-living group. It is studied due to its potential use in the biological control of the tsetse fly. Sodalis is an important model for evolutionary biologists because of its nascent endosymbiosis with insects.
Rudolf Amann is a German biochemist and microbiologist. He is director of Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology (MPIMM) in Bremen and Professor for Microbial Ecology at the University of Bremen.
Martin Parniske is a German biologist with a specialisation in genetics, microbiology and biochemistry. He is university professor and head of the Institute of Genetics at the Faculty of Biology of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Parniske's scientific focus is on the molecular interaction between plants and symbiotic and pathogenic organisms including bacteria, fungi, oomycetes and insects.
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Nicole Dubilier is a marine microbiologist and director of the Symbiosis Department at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology since 2013 and a Professor of Microbial Symbioses at the University of Bremen. She is a pioneer in ecological and evolutionary symbiotic relationships between sea animals and their microbial partners inhabiting environments that harbour low nutrient concentrations. She was responsible for the discovery of a new form of symbiosis between two kinds of bacteria and the marine oligochaete Olavius algarvensis.
The Drosophila quinaria species group is a speciose lineage of mushroom-feeding flies studied for their specialist ecology, their parasites, population genetics, and the evolution of immune systems. Quinaria species are part of the Drosophila subgenus.
Vertical transmission of symbionts is the transfer of a microbial symbiont from the parent directly to the offspring. Many metazoan species carry symbiotic bacteria which play a mutualistic, commensal, or parasitic role.
Esperanza Martínez-Romero is a researcher and head of the Genomic Ecology Program at the Center for Genomic Sciences (CCG) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Cuernavaca, Mexico. She was awarded the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award in 2020.
Cynthia Mira Sharma is a biologist, who is Chair of Molecular Infection Biology II at the University of Würzburg. Her research focuses on how bacterial pathogens regulate their gene expression to adapt to changing environments or stress conditions.
Tobias J. Erb is a German biologist and chemist who has been the Director of the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg since 2017. His research focuses on microbial biochemistry and synthetic biology. He is particularly focused on the fixation and conversion of the greenhouse gas CO2.
References
- ↑ Online Publication Service of Würzburg University
- ↑ Profile on the webpage of the Max Planck Society
- ↑ Versatile symbionts: Reed beetles benefit from bacterial helpers through all life stages, press release, Dec. 6, 2020
- ↑ Defensive symbiosis leads to gene loss in bacterial partners, press release, Appr. 19, 2021
- ↑ Beewolves have been successfully using the same antibiotics for 68 million years, press release, Feb. 13, 2018
- ↑ Förderpreis der Ingrid Weiss / Horst Wiehe Stiftung
- ↑ 20. Thüringer Forschungspreis geht an vier Institute
- ↑ ERC Consolidator Grant for research on the relationship between beetles and symbiotic bacteria, press release, Dec. 6, 2018
- ↑ EMBO announces election of new members, EMBO Communications, July 4, 2023
- ↑ Martin Kaltenpoth appointed honorary professor at Friedrich Schiller University, October 30, 2023
