A comprehensive overview of symbiotic relationships between insects and microbes

Insects and Their Beneficial Microbes is an authoritative and accessible synthesis of insect associations with beneficial microorganisms. Angela Douglas distills the vast literature in entomology and microbiology, as well as the burgeoning microbiome literature, to explore the full scope of insect-microbial interactions and their applications to real-world problems in agriculture and medicine.

Douglas investigates how insects acquire and support their microbial partners, and examines how microorganisms contribute to insect nutrition, the defense against natural enemies, and the detoxification of natural allelochemicals and chemical insecticides. She analyzes how beneficial microbes can be harnessed to solve real-world problems in insect pest management, including strategies to suppress the transmission of viruses and microbial disease agents by mosquitoes and other insects. She also addresses the use of insects as biomedical models for effective microbial therapies treating a range of chronic human diseases, and considers how knowledge of insect-microbial interactions can promote the health of beneficial insects, especially in the context of environmental pollutants and climate change.

Insects and Their Beneficial Microbes provides a much-needed conceptual framework for the growing discipline of insect-microbial interactions, and offers a wealth of insights into insect symbioses from molecular, physiological, ecological, and evolutionary perspectives.

"In Insects and their Beneficial Microbes, Angela Douglas, a leading scholar in microbiology and microbiome science, brings together the first synthesis of research in beneficial insect-microbe interactions, looking at a variety of insects and their beneficial microbes and the possible ramifications of insect-microbial interactions in agriculture and medicine. Douglas first provides a foundation for microbe-insect interactions and then discusses the many applications for both insects and humans. She begins by discussing the location of these "microbial partners" (the insect and microbe), how insects acquire certain microbes, and what the microbes specifically do for their hosts. For example, we learn how insects supplement nutrients from their microbial partners that protect them from dangerous pathogens and parasites. Douglas also takes a broader look at the mechanisms underlying these symbiotic interactions and the role evolution has played in their creation. Incorporating recent advances in this burgeoning field, this book looks at the way beneficial microbes can offer solutions to problems caused by pests and disease, with possible applications to the human microbiome and human health"--

"[Insects and Their Beneficial Microbes] is no small undertaking. . . . This is a decades-overdue and much-needed overview of the diversity of insect-microbe associations."---Alison Ravenscraft, Quarterly Review of Biology