Cladogenesis and Genomic Streamlining in Extracellular Endosymbionts of Tropical Stink Bugs

Phytophagous stink bugs are globally distributed and many harbor vertically inherited bacterial symbionts that are extracellular, yet little is known about how the symbiont’s genomes have evolved under this transmission strategy. Genome reduction is common in insect intracellular symbionts but limited genome sampling of the extracellular symbionts of distantly related stink bugs has precluded inferring patterns of extracellular symbiont genome evolution. To address this knowledge gap, we completely sequenced the genomes of the uncultivable bacterial symbionts of four neotropical stink bugs of the Edessa genus. Phylogenetic and comparative analyses indicated that the symbionts form a clade within the Pantoea genus and their genomes are highly reduced (∼0.8 Mb). Furthermore, genome synteny analysis and a jackknife approach for phylogenetic reconstruction, which corrected for long branch attraction artifacts, indicated that the Edessa symbionts were the result of a single symbiotic event that was distinct from the symbiosis event giving rise to Candidatus “Pantoea carbekii,” the extracellular symbiont of the invasive pentatomid stink bug, Halyomorpha halys. Metabolic functions inferred from the Edessa symbiont genomes suggests a shift in genomic composition characteristic of its lifestyle in that they retained many host-supportive functions while undergoing dramatic gene loss and establishing a stable relationship with their host insects. Given the undersampled nature of extracellular insect symbionts, this study is the first comparative analysis of these symbiont genomes from four distinct Edessa stink bug species. Finally, we propose the candidate name “Candidatus Pantoea edessiphila” for the species of these symbionts with strain designations according to their host species.