Lably
Skip to content

Phytophaga

  • 1 min read
  • 1 chapters

Explore on Lably

ToursExplore Lably’s 3D tours

The diversification of species within the Phytophaga is thought to be associated with the speciation within the Angiosperms. The plant-feeding habit may have been a shift from microfungal, spore-feeding (on strobili and cycads) and saprotrophic habits. With nearly 125,000 described species they are the second largest phytophagous lineage of insects after the order Lepidoptera. GH45s are only encoded by the genomes possessed by the Phytophaga beetles. The derived G45s from Phytophaga degrade 3 main substances: amorphous cellulose, xyloglucan and glucomannan. It was also composed of fungal sequences, acquired by gene transfer from fungi.

More in Animals