The amazing value of the eLife Assessment, demonstrated:

"The fascinating role of neuropeptide Bursicon and its receptor in shaping insect seasonal polyphenism", by Zhang et al. 2024
https://elifesciences.org/reviewed-preprints/97298

"This *important* study shows that low temperature activates the bursicon signaling pathway during the transition from the summer to the winter form and that it affects cuticle pigment and chitin content, and cuticle thickness."

"The study's *solid* set of experiments and results reveal a role of bursicon signaling in regulating features of polyphenism related to the exoskeleton. Nevertheless, they only *incompletely* substantiate the authors' claims about the regulation of polyphenism itself."

In which other journal would a reader get such a valuable reviewer comment like this, right away? Only at @eLife ! ELife's Assessment for the win.

#insects #entomology #Hemiptera #Psyllidae

Content warning: Published Science. Symbiosis in beetles Click to open/close

#Bostrichidae #beetles have two #symbionts with important functions. One encodes the pathways to produce tyrosine precursors and is presumably involved in #cuticle and #exoskeleton formation. The second recycles urea, synthesizes lysine, and is strictly #evolving with its host. These types of "dual symbioses" have only been described in sap-feeding #Hemiptera.

#Biology #Entomology #Evolution #Bacteria #Coevolution #Genome

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.12.09.519726v1

Cuticle supplementation and nitrogen recycling by a dual bacterial symbiosis in a family of xylophagous beetles (Coleoptera: Bostrichidae)

Many insects engage in stable nutritional symbioses with bacteria that supplement limiting essential nutrients to their host.

^bioRxiv