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Nicole Marie Gerardo | |
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| Education | Rice University, University of Texas at Austin |
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| Institutions | Emory University |
| Website | https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/gerardolab/ |
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 “Farming Ants Reveal Evolution Secrets”, Emory University, May 13, 2009 |
Nicole M. Gerardo is an entomologist and Professor of Biology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. [1] In 2021, she became editor of the Annual Review of Entomology . [2] [3]
Gerardo earned a B.A. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Rice University in Houston, Texas in 1997. [1] She received her Ph.D. in Integrative Biology from the University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas in 2004. [1]
Gerardo is an entomologist and Professor of Biology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. [1] Gerardo's work focuses on evolutionary ecology, in particular the relationships between both beneficial and harmful microbes and their hosts. For example, aphids are supplied with nutrients by beneficial bacteria and may have lowered immunity to ensure that the relationship continues. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] Her whole-genome analyses of insect species have revealed that the pea aphid appears to have lost the Imd pathway, considered a key immune pathway in many species. [9] Her work on the genetics of insect species has also revealed patterns of immune gene evolution of monarch butterflies. [10] Another of her areas of study involves fungal pathogens, fungus-growing ants and their gardens, which are regarded as a model of symbiosis. [11]
Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cretaceous period. More than 13,800 of an estimated total of 22,000 species have been classified. They are easily identified by their geniculate (elbowed) antennae and the distinctive node-like structure that forms their slender waists.
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.
Mutualism describes the ecological interaction between two or more species where each species has a net benefit. Mutualism is a common type of ecological interaction. Prominent examples are:
Aphids are small sap-sucking insects and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea. Common names include greenfly and blackfly, although individuals within a species can vary widely in color. The group includes the fluffy white woolly aphids. A typical life cycle involves flightless females giving live birth to female nymphs—who may also be already pregnant, an adaptation scientists call telescoping generations—without the involvement of males. Maturing rapidly, females breed profusely so that the number of these insects multiplies quickly. Winged females may develop later in the season, allowing the insects to colonize new plants. In temperate regions, a phase of sexual reproduction occurs in the autumn, with the insects often overwintering as eggs.
In evolutionary ecology, a parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionary strategies within parasitism, distinguished by the fatal prognosis for the host, which makes the strategy close to predation.
Lycaenidae is the second-largest family of butterflies, with over 6,000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies. They constitute about 30% of the known butterfly species.
Ant–fungus mutualism is a symbiosis seen between certain ant and fungal species, in which ants actively cultivate fungus much like humans farm crops as a food source. There is only evidence of two instances in which this form of agriculture evolved in ants resulting in a dependence on fungi for food. These instances were the attine ants and some ants that are part of the Megalomyrmex genus. In some species, the ants and fungi are dependent on each other for survival. This type of codependency is prevalent among herbivores who rely on plant material for nutrition. The fungus’ ability to convert the plant material into a food source accessible to their host makes them the ideal partner. The leafcutter ant is a well-known example of this symbiosis. Leafcutter ants species can be found in southern South America up to the United States. However, ants are not the only ground-dwelling arthropods which have developed symbioses with fungi. A similar mutualism with fungi is also noted in termites within the subfamily Macrotermitinae which are widely distributed throughout the Old World tropics with the highest diversity in Africa.
Parasitoid wasps are a large group of hymenopteran superfamilies, with all but the wood wasps (Orussoidea) being in the wasp-waisted Apocrita. As parasitoids, they lay their eggs on or in the bodies of other arthropods, sooner or later causing the death of these hosts. Different species specialise in hosts from different insect orders, most often Lepidoptera, though some select beetles, flies, or bugs; the spider wasps (Pompilidae) exclusively attack spiders.
Myrmecophily is the term applied to positive interspecies associations between ants and a variety of other organisms, such as plants, other arthropods, and fungi. Myrmecophily refers to mutualistic associations with ants, though in its more general use, the term may also refer to commensal or even parasitic interactions.
The Annual Review of Entomology is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes review articles about entomology, the study of insects. First published in 1956 from a collaboration between the Entomological Society of America and Annual Reviews, its longest-serving editors are Thomas E. Mittler (1967–1997) and May Berenbaum (1998–2018). As of 2023, Annual Review of Entomology is being published as open access, under the Subscribe to Open model. Also as of 2024, Journal Citation Reports gives the journal a 2023 impact factor of 15.0, ranking it first of 109 journals in the category "Entomology".
Eusociality is the highest level of organization of sociality. It is defined by the following characteristics: cooperative brood care, overlapping generations within a colony of adults, and a division of labor into reproductive and non-reproductive groups. The division of labor creates specialized behavioral groups within an animal society which are sometimes referred to as 'castes'. Eusociality is distinguished from all other social systems because individuals of at least one caste usually lose the ability to perform behaviors characteristic of individuals in another caste. Eusocial colonies can be viewed as superorganisms.
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.
Acyrthosiphon pisum, commonly known as the pea aphid, is a sap-sucking insect in the family Aphididae. It feeds on several species of legumes worldwide, including forage crops, such as pea, clover, alfalfa, and broad bean, and ranks among the aphid species of major agronomical importance. The pea aphid is a model organism for biological study whose genome has been sequenced and annotated.
The hologenome theory of evolution recasts the individual animal or plant as a community or a "holobiont" – the host plus all of its symbiotic microbes. Consequently, the collective genomes of the holobiont form a "hologenome". Holobionts and hologenomes are structural entities that replace misnomers in the context of host-microbiota symbioses such as superorganism, organ, and metagenome. Variation in the hologenome may encode phenotypic plasticity of the holobiont and can be subject to evolutionary changes caused by selection and drift, if portions of the hologenome are transmitted between generations with reasonable fidelity. One of the important outcomes of recasting the individual as a holobiont subject to evolutionary forces is that genetic variation in the hologenome can be brought about by changes in the host genome and also by changes in the microbiome, including new acquisitions of microbes, horizontal gene transfers, and changes in microbial abundance within hosts. Although there is a rich literature on binary host–microbe symbioses, the hologenome concept distinguishes itself by including the vast symbiotic complexity inherent in many multicellular hosts.
The mycobiome, mycobiota, or fungal microbiome, is the fungal community in and on an organism.
A holobiont is an assemblage of a host and the many other species living in or around it, which together form a discrete ecological unit through symbiosis, though there is controversy over this discreteness. The components of a holobiont are individual species or bionts, while the combined genome of all bionts is the hologenome. The holobiont concept was initially introduced by the German theoretical biologist Adolf Meyer-Abich in 1943, and then apparently independently by Dr. Lynn Margulis in her 1991 book Symbiosis as a Source of Evolutionary Innovation. The concept has evolved since the original formulations. Holobionts include the host, virome, microbiome, and any other organisms which contribute in some way to the functioning of the whole. Well-studied holobionts include reef-building corals and humans.
Hologenomics is the omics study of hologenomes. A hologenome is the whole set of genomes of a holobiont, an organism together with all co-habitating microbes, other life forms, and viruses. While the term hologenome originated from the hologenome theory of evolution, which postulates that natural selection occurs on the holobiont level, hologenomics uses an integrative framework to investigate interactions between the host and its associated species. Examples include gut microbe or viral genomes linked to human or animal genomes for host-microbe interaction research. Hologenomics approaches have also been used to explain genetic diversity in the microbial communities of marine sponges.
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. A symbiont is acquired by a host via horizontal, vertical, or mixed transmission.
Diana L. Six is a forest entomologist and professor at the University of Montana. Her research focuses primarily on bark beetle ecology and forest adaptation to climate change. Six is the recipient of the 2018 Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Technology Pioneer Award, has presented at TEDx, and has been featured in National Geographic among other nationally recognized media.
Fungus pockets are any of various convergently evolved inoculum-retention and -cultivation organs in a wide range of insect taxa. They are generally divided into mycangia and infrabuccal pockets.
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