Insects are an extraordinarily successful group of animals that can feed on a wide range of diets. From feeding on fungi, detritus, leaves, plant sap and pollen, animal blood and feathers, to carcasses – insects can successfuly exploit challenging and potentially noxious diets. Despite the widespread recognition of their ecological success, our understanding of the molecular basis of their dietary triumphs is poor. Understanding the mechanistic basis of how insects achieve this extraordinary task is itself a major motivation.

Insects are also incredibly important. EO Wilson describes insects (and invertebrates) as “the little things that run the world”. They get very little credit for keeping alive food webs, for engineering important ecological processes, for shaping terrestrial biomass dynamics, and for pollinating plants which ensures the success of many of our crops. Thus, understanding insect nutritional physiology and ecology has both fundamental and applied significance.

Insects show highly complex and intricate associations with microorganisms. In some species, these associations are obligatory – insects cannot survive without their symbionts and the microbes have lost their free living ability outside their insect hosts. Such interdependence has ramifications on the biology of both the interacting partners at the genomic, morphological, behavioral and ecological levels. Insect-microbe interactions thus offer a fascinating chance to study the ancient phenomenon of symbiosis that has altered the very way life has evolved on the planet.

Their dietary specializations across life stages, their growth in microbe-rich habitats, their diverse adaptations to abiotic factors and their remarkable diversity makes insects an excellent model system to ask interesting questions in physiology and ecology.