The semiochemically mediated interactions between bacteria and insects

Abstract

In natural environment, semiochemicals are involved in many interactions between the different trophic levels involving insects, plants and hosts for parasitoids or prey for predators. These volatile compounds act as messengers within or between insect species, inducing particular behaviours, such as the localisation of a source of food, the orientation to an adequate oviposition site, the selection of a suitable breeding site and the localisation of hosts or prey. In this sense, bacteria have been shown to play an important role in the production of volatile compounds which ones act as semiochemicals. This review, focusing on the semiochemically mediated interactions between bacteria and insects, highlights that bacterial semiochemicals act as important messengers for insects. Indeed, in most of the studies reported here, insects respond to specific volatiles emitted by specific bacteria hosted by the insect itself (gut, mouthparts, etc.) or present in the natural environment where the insect evolves. Particularly, bacteria from the families Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonaceae and Bacillaceae are involved in many interactions with insects. Because semiochemicals naturally produced by bacteria could be a very interesting option for pest management, advances in this field are discussed in the context of biological control against insect pests.

Prevalence and Relative Risk of Cronobacter spp., Salmonella spp., and Listeria monocytogenes Associated with the Body Surfaces and Guts of Individual Filth Flies

“…These microorganisms are considered indigenous microbiota in flies as they can establish symbiotic relationships with the host, providing nutrients or other defensive compounds (56).…”

“…However, the role of foodborne pathogens on the body surfaces or in the intestinal tracts of flies is not totally understood. They can be opportunistic pathogens (89), but they can also establish symbiotic relationships with the host's commensal microbiota (56). Food-borne pathogens can remain in the intestines for a greater length of time than on the body surfaces (40,71), where they are able to multiply (33) and colonize the fly's digestive tract (61), increasing the potential for dissemination.…”

Effect of water and resource availability on ant feeding preferences: a field experiment on the Mediterranean ant Crematogaster scutellaris

“…Under this hypothesised scenario, environmental exposure influences bacterial community, and bacterial community in turn influences or maintains behavioural task, which in turn feeds back into environmental exposure. Bidirectional links between behaviour and bacteria have been well studied in mammals (e.g., Dillon et al 2000;Hosokawa et al 2008;Bravo et al 2011;Leroy et al 2011;Montiel-Castro 2013;Lyte 2013;Luna and Foster 2015;Stothart et al 2016). A possible next step may therefore be to investigate the bidirectional relationship between the honey bee brain and its gut microbial community, with a focus on the bacterial taxa identified here.…”

Social attraction mediated by fruit flies' microbiome

“…While it is not clear to us why this would be the case, the fact is that bacteria release a remarkable number of volatiles (Schulz and Dickschat, 2007) salient to many animals, including humans (Lam et al, 2007;Archie and Theis, 2011;Leroy et al, 2011;Davis et al, 2013). The level of saliency of a volatile, however, is not merely a passive chemical property, because it can also reflect an evolved adaptation by an animal.…”