Defensive insect symbiont leads to cascading extinctions and community collapse.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Sanders D
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4949664 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Defensive insect symbiont leads to cascading extinctions and community collapse.
Sanders Dirk D Kehoe Rachel R van Veen Fj Frank FF McLean Ailsa A Godfray H Charles J HC Dicke Marcel M Gols Rieta R Frago Enric E
Ecology letters 20160701 7
Animals often engage in mutualistic associations with microorganisms that protect them from predation, parasitism or pathogen infection. Studies of these interactions in insects have mostly focussed on the direct effects of symbiont infection on natural enemies without studying community-wide effects. Here, we explore the effect of a defensive symbiont on population dynamics and species extinctions in an experimental community composed of three aphid species and their associated specialist paras ...[more]
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