Decomposers are crucial for keeping Earth habitable, breaking down dead biomass and returning key nutrients, such as carbon, ...

Scientists explored the evolutionary success of leaf beetles, the most diverse herbivores on Earth. They showed that symbioses with bacteria have evolved repeatedly and independently in different ...

With more than 50,000 described species, the leaf beetle family is distributed worldwide and represents about a quarter of the species diversity of all herbivores. Leaf beetles can be found to feed on ...

The movement or acquisition of genetic material between organisms that is not the result of vertical inheritance (reproduction) is called horizontal (or lateral) gene transfer. Horizontal gene ...

A new study has shown that virus-like transposons, called Mavericks, are responsible for horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in nematodes. Researchers led by Alejandro Burga at the Austrian Academy of ...

Like most bacteria, Vibrio cholerae lives under constant attack from viruses. To survive, bacteria equip themselves with antiviral immune systems. Previous work showed that V. cholerae carries a large ...