Mireia Vidal-Villarejo, Bianca Dößelmann, Benedikt Kogler, Michael Hammerschmidt, Barbara Oppliger, Hans Oppliger, Karl Schmid
{"title":"Regional diversity and leaf microbiome interactions of the fungal maize pathogen Exserohilum turcicum in Switzerland: A metagenomic analysis","authors":"Mireia Vidal-Villarejo, Bianca Dößelmann, Benedikt Kogler, Michael Hammerschmidt, Barbara Oppliger, Hans Oppliger, Karl Schmid","doi":"10.1111/mec.17482","DOIUrl":"10.1111/mec.17482","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The spread and adaptation of fungal plant pathogens in agroecosystems are facilitated by environmental homogeneity. Metagenomic sequencing of infected tissues allowed us to monitor eco-evolutionary dynamics and interactions between host, pathogen and plant microbiome. <i>Exserohilum turcicum</i>, the causal agent of northern corn leaf blight (NCLB) in maize, is distributed in multiple clonal lineages throughout Europe. To characterize regional pathogen diversity, we conducted metagenomic DNA sequencing on 241 infected leaf samples from the highly susceptible Swiss maize landrace Rheintaler Ribelmais, collected over 3 years (2016–2018) from an average of 14 agricultural farms within the Swiss Rhine Valley. All major European clonal lineages of <i>E. turcicum</i> were identified. Lineages differ by their mating types which indicates potential for sexual recombination and rapid evolution of new pathogen strains, although we found no evidence of recent recombination. The associated eukaryotic and prokaryotic leaf microbiome exhibited variation in taxonomic diversity between years and locations and is likely influenced by local weather conditions. A network analysis revealed distinct clusters of eukaryotic and prokaryotic taxa that correlates with the frequency of <i>E. turcicum</i> sequencing reads, suggesting causal interactions. Notably, the yeast genus <i>Metschnikowia</i> exhibited a strongly negative association with <i>E. turcicum</i>, supporting its known potential as biological control agent against fungal pathogens. Our findings show that metagenomic sequencing is a useful tool for analysing the role of environmental factors and potential pathogen–microbiome interactions in shaping pathogen dynamics and evolution, suggesting their potential for effective pathogen management strategies.</p>","PeriodicalId":210,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/mec.17482","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141854287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Manuel Ochoa-Sánchez, E. Paola Acuña-Gómez, Claudio A. Moraga, Katherine Gaete, Jorge Acevedo, Luis E. Eguiarte, Valeria Souza
{"title":"The ephemeral microbiota: Ecological context and environmental variability drive the body surface microbiota composition of Magellanic penguins across subantarctic breeding colonies","authors":"Manuel Ochoa-Sánchez, E. Paola Acuña-Gómez, Claudio A. Moraga, Katherine Gaete, Jorge Acevedo, Luis E. Eguiarte, Valeria Souza","doi":"10.1111/mec.17472","DOIUrl":"10.1111/mec.17472","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Environmental microbes routinely colonize wildlife body surface microbiota. However, animals experience dynamic environmental shifts throughout their daily routine. Yet, the effect of ecological shifts in wildlife body surface microbiota has been poorly explored. Here, we sequenced the hypervariable region V3–V4 of the 16S rRNA gene to characterize the body surface microbiota of wild Magellanic penguins (<i>Spheniscus magellanicus</i>) under two ecological contexts: (1) Penguins walking along the coast and (2) Penguins sheltered underground in their nest, across three subantarctic breeding colonies in the Magellan Strait, Chile. Despite ecological contexts, our results revealed that Moraxellaceae bacteria were the most predominant and abundant taxa associated with penguin body surfaces. Nevertheless, we detected colony-specific core bacteria associated with penguin bodies. The most abundant were: <i>Deinococcus</i> in the Contramaestre colony, <i>Fusobacterium</i> in the Tuckers 1 colony, and <i>Clostridium</i> sensu stricto <i>1</i> in the Tuckers 2 colony. Our results give a new perspective on the niche environmental hypothesis for wild seabirds. First, the ecological characteristics of each colony were associated with the microbial communities from the nest soil and the body surface of penguins inside the nests. For example, in the colonies with heterogenous vegetation cover (i.e. the Tuckers Islets), there was a similar microbial composition between the nest soil and the body surface of penguins. In contrast, on the more arid colony (Contramaestre), we detected differences in the microbial communities between the nest soil and the body surface of penguins.</p>","PeriodicalId":210,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/mec.17472","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141791403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
K. A. Coffman, A. N. Kauwe, N. E. Gillette, G. R. Burke, S. M. Geib
{"title":"Host range of a parasitoid wasp is linked to host susceptibility to its mutualistic viral symbiont","authors":"K. A. Coffman, A. N. Kauwe, N. E. Gillette, G. R. Burke, S. M. Geib","doi":"10.1111/mec.17485","DOIUrl":"10.1111/mec.17485","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Parasitoid wasps are one of the most species-rich groups of animals on Earth, due to their ability to successfully develop as parasites of nearly all types of insects. Unlike most known parasitoid wasps that specialize towards one or a few host species, <i>Diachasmimorpha longicaudata</i> is a generalist that can survive within multiple genera of tephritid fruit fly hosts, including many globally important pest species. <i>Diachasmimorpha longicaudata</i> has therefore been widely released to suppress pest populations as part of biological control efforts in tropical and subtropical agricultural ecosystems. In this study, we investigated the role of a mutualistic poxvirus in shaping the host range of <i>D. longicaudata</i> across three genera of agricultural pest species: two of which are permissive hosts for <i>D. longicaudata</i> parasitism and one that is a nonpermissive host. We found that permissive hosts <i>Ceratitis capitata</i> and <i>Bactrocera dorsalis</i> were highly susceptible to manual virus injection, displaying rapid virus replication and abundant fly mortality. However, the nonpermissive host <i>Zeugodacus cucurbitae</i> largely overcame virus infection, exhibiting substantially lower mortality and no virus replication. Investigation of transcriptional dynamics during virus infection demonstrated hindered viral gene expression and limited changes in fly gene expression within the nonpermissive host compared with the permissive species, indicating that the host range of the viral symbiont may influence the host range of <i>D. longicaudata</i> wasps. These findings also reveal that viral symbiont activity may be a major contributor to the success of <i>D. longicaudata</i> as a generalist parasitoid species and a globally successful biological control agent.</p>","PeriodicalId":210,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/mec.17485","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141854286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nuria Blasco-Lavilla, Alejandro López-López, Pilar De la Rúa, Seth Michael Barribeau
{"title":"Infection by Crithidia bombi increases relative abundance of Lactobacillus spp. in the gut of Bombus terrestris","authors":"Nuria Blasco-Lavilla, Alejandro López-López, Pilar De la Rúa, Seth Michael Barribeau","doi":"10.1111/mec.17478","DOIUrl":"10.1111/mec.17478","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Gut microbial communities confer protection against natural pathogens in important pollinators from the genera <i>Bombus</i> and <i>Apis</i>. In commercial species <i>B. terrestris</i> and <i>B. impatiens</i>, the microbiota increases their resistance to the common and virulent trypanosomatid parasite <i>Crithidia bombi</i>. However, the mechanisms by which gut microorganisms protect the host are still unknown. Here, we test two hypotheses: microbiota protect the host (1) through stimulation of its immune response or protection of the gut epithelium and (2) by competing for resources with the parasite inside the gut. To test them, we reduced the microbiota of workers and then rescued the microbial community by feeding them with microbiota supplements. We then exposed them to an infectious dose of <i>C. bombi</i> and characterised gene expression and gut microbiota composition. We examined the expression of three antimicrobial peptide genes and <i>Mucin-5AC</i>, a gene with a putative role in gut epithelium protection, using qPCR. Although a protective effect against <i>C. bombi</i> was observed in bumblebees with supplemented microbiota, we did not observe an effect of the microbiota on gene expression that could explain alone the protective effect observed. On the other hand, we found an increased relative abundance of <i>Lactobacillus</i> bacteria within the gut of infected workers and a negative correlation of this genus with <i>Gilliamella</i> and <i>Snodgrassella</i> genera. Therefore, our results point to a displacement of bumblebee endosymbionts by <i>C. bombi</i> that might be caused by competition for space and nutrients between the parasite and the microbiota within the gut.</p>","PeriodicalId":210,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141791402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Wen-Hsi Kuo, Limei Zhong, Sara J. Wright, David M. Goad, Kenneth M. Olsen
{"title":"Beyond cyanogenesis: Temperature gradients drive environmental adaptation in North American white clover (Trifolium repens L.)","authors":"Wen-Hsi Kuo, Limei Zhong, Sara J. Wright, David M. Goad, Kenneth M. Olsen","doi":"10.1111/mec.17484","DOIUrl":"10.1111/mec.17484","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Species that repeatedly evolve phenotypic clines across environmental gradients have been highlighted as ideal systems for characterizing the genomic basis of local environmental adaptation. However, few studies have assessed the importance of observed phenotypic clines for local adaptation: conspicuous traits that vary clinally may not necessarily be the most critical in determining local fitness. The present study was designed to fill this gap, using a plant species characterized by repeatedly evolved adaptive phenotypic clines. White clover is naturally polymorphic for its chemical defence cyanogenesis (HCN release with tissue damage); climate-associated cyanogenesis clines have evolved throughout its native and introduced range worldwide. We performed landscape genomic analyses on 415 wild genotypes from 43 locations spanning much of the North American species range to assess the relative importance of cyanogenesis loci vs. other genomic factors in local climatic adaptation. We find clear evidence of local adaptation, with temperature-related climatic variables best describing genome-wide differentiation between sampling locations. The same climatic variables are also strongly correlated with cyanogenesis frequencies and gene copy number variations (CNVs) at cyanogenesis loci. However, landscape genomic analyses indicate no significant contribution of cyanogenesis loci to local adaptation. Instead, several genomic regions containing promising candidate genes for plant response to seasonal cues are identified — some of which are shared with previously identified QTLs for locally adaptive fitness traits in North American white clover. Our findings suggest that local adaptation in white clover is likely determined primarily by genes controlling the timing of growth and flowering in response to local seasonal cues. More generally, this work suggests that caution is warranted when considering the importance of conspicuous phenotypic clines as primary determinants of local adaptation.</p>","PeriodicalId":210,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141786686","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
María José Gómez Quijano, Briana L. Gross, Julie R. Etterson
{"title":"Genetic differentiation across a steep and narrow environmental gradient: Quantitative genetic and genomic insights into Lake Superior populations of Quercus rubra","authors":"María José Gómez Quijano, Briana L. Gross, Julie R. Etterson","doi":"10.1111/mec.17483","DOIUrl":"10.1111/mec.17483","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Adaptive differentiation of traits and underlying loci can occur at a small geographical scale if natural selection is stronger than countervailing gene flow and drift. We investigated this hypothesis using coupled quantitative genetic and genomic approaches for a wind-pollinated tree species, <i>Quercus rubra</i>, along the steep, narrow gradient of the Lake Superior coast that encompasses four USDA Hardiness Zones within 100 km. For the quantitative genetic component of this study, we examined phenotypic differentiation among eight populations in a common garden, measuring seed mass, germination, height, stem diameter, leaf number, specific leaf area and survival. For the genomic component, we quantified genetic differentiation for 26 populations from the same region using RAD-seq. Because hybridisation with <i>Quercus ellipsoidalis</i> occurs in other parts of the species' range, we included two populations of this congener for comparison. In the common garden study, we found a strong signal of population differentiation that was significantly associated with at least one climate factor for nine of 10 measured traits. In contrast, we found no evidence of genomic differentiation among populations based on <i>F</i><sub>ST</sub> or any other measures. However, both distance-based and genotype–environment association analyses identified loci showing the signature of selection, with one locus in common across five analyses. This locus was associated with the minimum temperature of the coldest month, a factor that defines the climate zones and was also significant in the common garden analyses. In addition, we documented introgression from <i>Q. ellipsoidalis</i> into <i>Q. rubra</i>, with rates of introgression correlated with the climate gradient. In sum, this study reveals signatures of selection at the quantitative trait and genomic level consistent with climate adaptation, a pattern that is more often documented at a much broader geographical scale, especially in long-lived wind-pollinated species.</p>","PeriodicalId":210,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/mec.17483","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141756051","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jia Zhang, Nadja M. Schneller, Matt A. Field, Cheong Xin Chan, David J. Miller, Jan M. Strugnell, Cynthia Riginos, Line Bay, Ira Cooke
{"title":"Chromosomal inversions harbour excess mutational load in the coral, Acropora kenti, on the Great Barrier Reef","authors":"Jia Zhang, Nadja M. Schneller, Matt A. Field, Cheong Xin Chan, David J. Miller, Jan M. Strugnell, Cynthia Riginos, Line Bay, Ira Cooke","doi":"10.1111/mec.17468","DOIUrl":"10.1111/mec.17468","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The future survival of coral reefs in the Anthropocene depends on the capacity of corals to adapt as oceans warm and extreme weather events become more frequent. Targeted interventions designed to assist evolutionary processes in corals require a comprehensive understanding of the distribution and structure of standing variation, however, efforts to map genomic variation in corals have so far focussed almost exclusively on SNPs, overlooking structural variants that have been shown to drive adaptive processes in other taxa. Here, we show that the reef-building coral, <i>Acropora kenti</i>, harbours at least five large, highly polymorphic structural variants, all of which exhibit signatures of strongly suppressed recombination in heterokaryotypes, a feature commonly associated with chromosomal inversions. Based on their high minor allele frequency, uniform distribution across habitats and elevated genetic load, we propose that these inversions in <i>A</i>. <i>kenti</i> are likely to be under balancing selection. An excess of SNPs with high impact on protein-coding genes within these loci elevates their importance both as potential targets for adaptive selection and as contributors to genetic decline if coral populations become fragmented or inbred in future.</p>","PeriodicalId":210,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/mec.17468","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141750679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Irene Di Lecce, Joanna Sudyka, Charles Perrier, Marta Szulkin
{"title":"Extra-pair paternity in two passerine birds breeding in a gradient of urbanisation","authors":"Irene Di Lecce, Joanna Sudyka, Charles Perrier, Marta Szulkin","doi":"10.1111/mec.17481","DOIUrl":"10.1111/mec.17481","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Urbanisation has been increasing worldwide in recent decades, driving environmental change and exerting novel selective pressures on wildlife. Phenotypic differences between urban and rural individuals have been widely documented in several taxa. However, the extent to which urbanisation impacts mating strategies is less known. Here, we investigated extra-pair paternity variation in great tits (<i>Parus major</i>) and blue tits (<i>Cyanistes caeruleus</i>) breeding in nestboxes set in a gradient of urbanisation in Warsaw, Poland, over three breeding seasons. Urbanisation was quantified as the amount of light pollution, noise pollution, impervious surface area (ISA) and tree cover within a 100-m radius around each nestbox. We obtained genotypes for 1213 great tits at 7344 SNP markers and for 1299 blue tits at 9366 SNP markers with a genotyping-by-sequencing method, and inferred extra-pair paternity by computing a genomewide relatedness matrix. We report higher extra-pair paternity in blue tits breeding in more urbanised areas, for example, with higher light pollution and ISA, and lower tree cover. However, no such trend was found in great tits. Late-stage survival of individual nestlings in both species was not associated with paternity or urbanisation proxies, thus we were not able to detect fitness benefits or drawbacks of being an extra-pair offspring in relation to urbanisation. Our results contribute to the growing body of knowledge reporting on the effects of urbanisation on avian ecology and behaviour, and confirm species-specific and population-specific patterns of extra-pair paternity variation.</p>","PeriodicalId":210,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141750680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Etienne Brejon Lamartinière, Keaton Tremble, Bryn T. M. Dentinger, Kanchon K. Dasmahapatra, Joseph I. Hoffman
{"title":"Runs of homozygosity reveal contrasting histories of inbreeding across global lineages of the edible porcini mushroom, Boletus edulis","authors":"Etienne Brejon Lamartinière, Keaton Tremble, Bryn T. M. Dentinger, Kanchon K. Dasmahapatra, Joseph I. Hoffman","doi":"10.1111/mec.17470","DOIUrl":"10.1111/mec.17470","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Inbreeding, the mating of individuals that are related through common ancestry, is of central importance in evolutionary and conservation biology due to its impacts on individual fitness and population dynamics. However, while advanced genomic approaches have revolutionised the study of inbreeding in animals, genomic studies of inbreeding are rare in plants and lacking in fungi. We investigated global patterns of inbreeding in the prized edible porcini mushroom <i>Boletus edulis</i> using 225 whole genomes from seven lineages distributed across the northern hemisphere. Genomic inbreeding was quantified using runs of homozygosity (ROHs). We found appreciable variation both among and within lineages, with some individuals having over 20% of their genomes in ROHs. Much of this variation could be explained by a combination of elevation and latitude, and to a lesser extent by predicted habitat suitability during the last glacial maximum. In line with this, the majority of ROHs were short, reflecting ancient common ancestry dating back approximately 200–1700 generations ago, while longer ROHs indicative of recent common ancestry (less than approximately 50 generations ago) were infrequent. Our study reveals the inbreeding legacy of major climatic events in a widely distributed forest mutualist, aligning with prevailing theories and empirical studies of the impacts of historical glaciation events on the dominant forest tree species of the northern hemisphere.</p>","PeriodicalId":210,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/mec.17470","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141732958","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Katharina Schneider, Rachel A. Steward, Maria de la Paz Celorio-Mancera, Niklas Janz, Dick Moberg, Christopher W. Wheat, Sören Nylin
{"title":"Plasticity for the win: Flexible transcriptional response to host plant switches in the comma butterfly (Polygonia c-album)","authors":"Katharina Schneider, Rachel A. Steward, Maria de la Paz Celorio-Mancera, Niklas Janz, Dick Moberg, Christopher W. Wheat, Sören Nylin","doi":"10.1111/mec.17479","DOIUrl":"10.1111/mec.17479","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Generalist plant-feeding insects are characterised by a broad host repertoire that can comprise several families or even different orders of plants. The genetic and physiological mechanisms underlying the use of such a wide host range are still not fully understood. Earlier studies indicate that the consumption of different host plants is associated with host-specific gene expression profiles. It remained, however, unclear if and how larvae can alter these profiles in the case of a changing host environment. Using the polyphagous comma butterfly (<i>Polygonia c-album</i>) we show that larvae can adjust their transcriptional profiles in response to a new host plant. The switch to some of the host plants, however, resulted in a larger transcriptional response and, thus, seems to be more challenging. At a physiological level, no correspondence for these patterns could be found in larval performance. This suggests that a high transcriptional but also phenotypic flexibility are essential for the use of a broad and diverse host range. We furthermore propose that host switch tests in the laboratory followed by transcriptomic investigations can be a valuable tool to examine not only plasticity in host use but also subtle and/or transient trade-offs in the evolution of host plant repertoires.</p>","PeriodicalId":210,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/mec.17479","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141732956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}