Symbiotic Bacterium Modifies Aphid Body Color

Abstract

Turncoat Aphids: Aphid color has consequences for the fate of the wearer: Coccinellid beetles prefer to eat red ones and parasitoid wasps attack green ones. What might happen if aphids could change color and outwit their predators? Tsuchida et al. (p. 1102 ) have found that a subpopulation of the pea aphid can do this, but not without help from a previously unknown species of bacterium that lives intimately with the aphid as an endosymbiont and makes red aphids turn green. The bacterium interferes with host pigment biosynthesis—itself borrowed from fungi long ago in evolution—to stimulate blue-green pigment production as the aphid larva matures, turning the red nymph into a green adult. The ecological consequences of this about-turn of color have yet to be tested, but other studies have shown a variety of effects on aphid behavior mediated by endosymbionts in response to adaptation to different food plants, temperature tolerance, and predator avoidance.