A bean bug, and its digestive system, showing where the symbiotic bacteria live. KIKUCHI ET AL
Japanese scientists have found that the bean bug, a major pest of soybean crops, swallows bacteria that break down an insecticide chemical. The bacteria allow it to continue munching on treated crops will no ill effects, according to a study published today (April 23) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Insecticide resistance typically takes many generations to evolve, usually because tweaks to the insects’ own genomes. But the bean bug’s strategy allows it to acquire such resistance with unprecedented speed by exploiting the genes of bacterial partners.
“It makes perfect sense,” said Nancy Moran, an evolutionary biologist at Yale University, who was not involved in this study. “Bacteria have a much greater diversity of enzymatic functions than do animals.”
While the phenomenon ...
