Coffee plants abandoned in Colombia becasue of the coffee berry borer beetle, known as broca.FLICKR, NEIL PALMER
Horizontal or lateral gene transfers—the swap of genetic material between different species—are relatively rare in animals and, when they are identified, they frequently have unknown ecological significance. Research published online today (February 27) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that a coffee-devouring insect pest has a bacterial gene embedded in its DNA that encodes a coffee-digesting protein.
“What’s novel in this case is a bacterial gene going into the insect that actually allows the insect to feed off of a new food source,” said Julie Dunning Hotopp, a genomicist who studies lateral gene transfer at the University of Maryland and was not involved in the research. “It’s a gene that’s been transferred and it’s functional.”
Coffee berry borer beetle (Hypothenemus hampei) ...
