tettigades cicada
Within cicadas such as those in the genus Tettigades, a world of microbes has evolved to provide nutrients to the cicadas. As reported in a pair of new studies at the University of Montana, researchers have discovered that the endosymbiont Hodgkinia cicadicola has split into at least two dozen lineages within cicada cells, in an apparent case of nonadaptive evolution. (Photo credit: Piotr Lukasik, Ph.D.)