CrossRefPubMed 6. Vautrin E, Genieys S, Charles S, Vavre F: Do vertically transmitted symbionts co-existing in a single host compete Protein Tyrosine Kinase inhibitor or cooperate? A modelling approach. J Evol Biol 2008, 21:145–161.CrossRefPubMed 7. Lombardo M: Access to mutualistic endosymbiotic microbes: an underappreciated benefit of group living. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 2008, 62:479–497.CrossRef 8. Krause J, Ruxton GD: Living in groups New York, Oxford

University Press 2002. 9. Cremer S, Armitage SAO, Schmid-Hempel P: Social Immunity. Curr Biol 2007, 17:R693-R702.CrossRefPubMed 10. Degnan PH, Lazarus AB, Brock CD, Wernegreen JJ: Host-symbiont stability and fast evolutionary rates in an ant-bacterium association: Cospeciation of Camponotus species and their endosymbionts, Candidatus Blochmannia. Syst Biol 2004, 53:95–110.CrossRefPubMed 11. Gaudermann P, Vogl I, Zientz E, Silva FJ, Moya A, Gross R, Dandekar T: Analysis of and function predictions for previously conserved hypothetical or putative proteins in Blochmannia floridanus. Bmc Microbiol 2006, 6:1.CrossRefPubMed 12. Degnan PH, Lazarus AB, Wernegreen JJ: Genome sequence of Blochmannia pennsylvanicus

indicates parallel evolutionary trends among bacterial mutualists of insects. Genome Res 2005, 15:1023–1033.CrossRefPubMed 13. Gil R, Silva FJ, Zientz E, Delmotte F, Gonzalez-Candelas F, Latorre A, Rausell C, Kamerbeek J, Gadau J, Holldobler B, et al.: The genome sequence of Blochmannia floridanus : Comparative analysis of reduced genomes. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2003, 100:9388–9393.CrossRefPubMed 14. Zientz E, Beyaert N, Gross R, Feldhaar H: Relevance of the endosymbiosis of Blochmannia floridanus and carpenter Stem Cells inhibitor ants at different stages of the life cycle of the host. Appl Environ Microbiol 2006, 72:6027–6033.CrossRefPubMed 15. Wernegreen JJ, Degnan PH, Lazarus AB, Palacios

C, Bordenstein SR: Genome evolution in an insect cell: Distinct features of an ant-bacterial partnership. Biol Bull 2003, 204:221–231.CrossRefPubMed 16. Sauer C, Stackebrandt E, Gadau J, Holldobler B, Gross R: Systematic relationships and cospeciation of bacterial Sclareol endosymbionts and their carpenter ant host species: proposal of the new taxon Candidatus Blochmannia gen. nov. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 2000, 50:1877–1886.PubMed 17. Moran NA: Symbiosis. Curr Biol 2006, 16:R866-R871.CrossRefPubMed 18. Oliver KM, Russell JA, Moran NA, Hunter MS: Facultative bacterial symbionts in aphids confer resistance to parasitic wasps. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2003, 100:1803–1807.CrossRefPubMed 19. Hedges LM, Brownlie JC, O’Neill SL, Johnson KN:Wolbachia and virus protection in insects. Science 2008, 322:702.CrossRefPubMed 20. Kaltenpoth M, Gottler W, Herzner G, Strohm E: Symbiotic bacteria protect wasp larvae from fungal infestation. Curr Biol 2005, 15:475–479.CrossRefPubMed 21. Wang Q, Garrity GM, Tiedje JM, Cole JR: Naive Bayesian classifier for rapid assignment of rRNA sequences into the new bacterial taxonomy. Appl Environ Microbiol 2007, 73:5261–5267.CrossRefPubMed 22.