Termites degrade lignocellulose with the help of their intestinal microbiota. Deep sequencing of the hindgut community revealed dramatic changes that coincide with major events in termite evolution. Termites arose from omnivorous cockroaches during the early Cretaceous, and all evolutionary lower termites harbor a dense assemblage of cellulolytic protists that are colonized by large populations of bacterial symbionts. The loss of flagellates in higher termites and their ensuing dietary diversification provided new niches for bacterial and archaeal symbionts, whose evolutionary origin and function in the digestive process are slowly emerging.
Andreas Brune studied biology in Marburg and Tübingen and received his doctorate in 1990. After two postdoctoral years in the USA, he started his own research group at the Universität Konstanz, where he habilitated in 2000. He was appointed Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg in 2003 and received an honorary professorship of the Philipps-Universität Marburg. His laboratory studies the gut microbiota of insects, with an emphasis on the bacterial symbionts of termite gut flagellates and the ecology and evolution of symbiotic digestion.
Moderation: Professor Dr. Tim Urich