Enchenopa binotata (Two Spotted Treehopper), formerly described as a single species, has more recently come to be understood as a complex of host-plant adapted species. These species exhibit one generation per year, which is synchronized to host plant phenology. As sap feeding insects, these treehoppers’ diet lacks amino acids, and they depend on their obligate bacterial symbiont Sulcia to synthesize essential amino acids. This nutritional dependence on their bacterial symbiont and mediation of life history timing by host-plant phenology may mean that host-shifting events permitted by variation in symbiont amino acid synthesis capabilities are responsible for speciation events in this complex. We investigate the arginine synthesis pathway of the Sulcia symbionts of various host plant adapted Enchenopa binotata species to determine whether symbiont amino acid synthesis capabilities are at play in speciation events across distantly related host-plants.
Sciences
