In recent decades, our environment has endured dramatic, human-induced changes, manifesting in varied impacts on insect populations, from steady declines and extinctions to explosive outbreaks and invasions.
As most insects engage in intimate relationships with microbial symbionts, these biotic interactions are inevitably influenced by anthropogenic changes. In aggressive bark beetles, such as Ips typographus, notorious for their increasing mass outbreaks, the significance of host-microbiome relationships is gaining recognition for their crucial role in the beetle’s ecological and evolutionary success.
I invite you to explore our current research on symbiont-mediated protective functions and their influence on beetle behavior, as well as an experimental evolution approach to investigate how the beetle’s associated microbiome might be shaped by varying temperature regimes.
