Abstract
Following the concept of the holobiont, insect-microbiota interactions play an important role in insect biology. Many examples of host-associated microorganisms have been reported to drastically influence insect biological processes such as development, physiology, nutrition, survival, immunity, or even vector competence. While a huge number of studies on insect-associated microbiota have focused on bacteria, other microbial partners including fungi have been comparatively neglected. Yeasts, which establish mostly commensal or symbiotic relationships with their host, can dominate the mycobiota of certain insects. This review presents key advances and progress in the research field highlighting the diversity of yeast communities associated with insects, as well as their impact on insect life-history traits, immunity, and behavior.
Highlights
With nearly one million described species and 5.5 million estimated ones, insects represent more than 80% of the animal biodiversity on Earth [1]
Despite a growing number of studies on the impact of yeasts on the biology and behavior of insects, these are still very limited and mainly concern the few insect species closely associated with agricultural systems and ecosystem services
The rules governing these interactions and their effects on microbial and animal lives are far from completely understood, and depicting relations between yeasts and insects will represent a fundamental step towards a better understanding of ecological and evolutionary interactions
Summary
With nearly one million described species and 5.5 million estimated ones, insects represent more than 80% of the animal biodiversity on Earth [1]. Most of bacterial microbiota inhabit the digestive tract [3,4], which is composed of three regions with specific functions (Figure 1). These regions vary extensively in terms of morphology and physicochemical properties across insect orders, factors that are known to greatly influence microbial community structure [3]. The midgut, which hosts a dense and diverse microbial community in most insect orders, is the primary site of digestion and absorption [4]. This review highlights the diversity of commensal and symbiotic yeast communities associated with insects, as well as their impact on insect life-history traits (development, survival, reproduction), immunity, and behavior. Drosophila melanogaster-yeast interactions have been extensively documented [42,43], this insect species was not included in the present review
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