Skip to main content
Entomology 2020 Main banner
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.
Presentation Icons
Plenary
Plenary
Livestream
Livestream
On-Demand
On-Demand
Student Competition
Student Competition
Video Chat
Video Chat
Panel Discussion
Panel Discussion
Mixer
Mixer
Poster Icons
Poster
Poster
Student Competition
Student Competition
ViewAttendees 8

Member Symposium

Microbial Interactions and Their Influence on Organisms and Ecosystems

7: An integrative approach on plant manipulating Lepidoptera: From leaf-miners to gall-inducers

On-Demand
On-Demand
Gall-inducing  insects  are  iconic  examples  in  the  manipulation  and  reprogramming  of  plant development, inducing spectacular morphological and physiological changes of host-plant tissues within which the insect feeds and grows. Despite decades of research, basic mechanisms of gall formation remain unknown. Recent research suggests that some aspects of the plant manipulation shown by gall-inducers may be shared with other insect herbivorous life histories. The ability of leaf-mining insects to manipulate their host plant physiology ask whether leaf-miners can also be considered to be plant reprogrammers. Understanding the evolution and adaptive significance of plant manipulation needs to contrast feeding strategies of different species in an evolutionary framework. It also needs to understand how insects manipulate the physiology and the anatomy of their host-plant including the role played by their endosymbiotic partners. We focused our study on Gracillariidae (Lepidoptera), the majority of which are leaf miners. This family contains around 2000 species but includes only a few galligenous species. We conducted an integrative approach on various plant manipulators to shed light on the origin of gall induction by insects and help to understand the mechanisms of gall morphogenesis. We demonstrate the existence of mix-strategies between leaf-mining and gall-inducing highlighting evolutionary convergences. Our results also show that insect bacterial symbionts contribute to plant-reprogrammer interactions suggesting that they most probably played a major role in the evolution and/or radiation of plant reprogrammers.