Symbiotic partner-swapping or long-term fidelity? Partnership success between beetles and bacteria revealed

Article excerpt

Some insects and microbes develop symbiotic partnerships that become so interdependent they can no longer survive without each other. But how specific are these heritable symbioses? Is it possible for the same species of bacteria to flourish across different species of insect hosts, or are these partnerships more fixed, honed over millions of years of evolution?