Nearly all animals engage in symbiotic relationships with microbes that shape their ecology and evolution. These associations are often context-dependent and fragile, with the effects symbionts have on the host changing under different environmental conditions, influencing host development, survival, and interspecific interactions.
Understanding how symbioses respond to stress is essential for predicting insect population dynamics in a changing climate.
Using the malleable system involving the squash bug (Anasa tristis) and its environmentally acquired symbiont, Caballeronia. This culturable microbe is essential for host survival and development with some strains offering adaptive benefits to local conditions such as insecticide resistance and even increase survival under increased temperatures (Stillson et al., 2025).
Environmental symbiont acquisition can buffer insects against increased temperatures, but we know little about how different symbionts contribute to this shift. As climate change accelerates, insects will increasingly face extreme conditions such such as high temperatures, rapid shifts in temperatures, and droughts.
My work explores how different Caballeronia symbionts influence host resilience under these scenarios. Understanding whether certain symbionts can rescue their hosts from environmental extremes has broad implications for agriculture, conservation, and our understanding of host–microbe interactions.