Aphids Balance Their Diets by Rebuilding Plant Amino Acids
Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - 16:06
in Biology & Nature
Aphids suck up an almost endless supply of sugary sap from their plant hosts. They can survive on this junk food diet because bacterial partners help them convert the handful of amino acids in the sap into other, essential amino acids--not by recycling them, but by breaking them down and rebuilding from scratch, a new study finds.