A worker of the Asian honeybee Apis cerana collecting nectar on Cayratia japonica flowers. Gut bacteria are crucial for the survival of the honeybees. Among these, Apibacter are particularly prevalent in Apis cerana. The evolutionary transition of Apibacter to a bee gut specific lifestyle involved serial genomic changes, including major genome contractions and the acquisition of a gene cluster responsible for nitrate respiration, which might have played a key role in facilitating its colonization of the gut epithelium (see pages 259‐275). Photo provided by Xin Zhou.
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