Aphids commonly harbour facultative bacterial endosymbionts and may benefit from their presence through increased resistance to parasitoids. This has been demonstrated for Hamiltonella defensa and Serratia symbiotica , while a third common endosymbiont, Regiella insecticola , did not provide such protection. However, this symbiont was recently detected in a highly resistant clone of the peach-potato aphid, Myzus persicae , from Australia. To test if resistance was indeed conferred by the endosymbiont, we eliminated it from this clone with antibiotics, and we transferred it to two other clones of the same and one clone of a different aphid species ( Aphis fabae ). Exposing these lines to the parasitoid Aphidius colemani showed clearly that unlike other strains of this bacterium, this specific isolate of R. insecticola provides strong protection against parasitic wasps, suggesting that the ability to protect their host against natural enemies may evolve readily in multiple species of endosymbiotic bacteria.

Maternally transmitted symbionts can spread in host populations if they provide a fitness benefit to their hosts. Hamiltonella defensa, a bacterial endosymbiont of aphids, protects hosts against parasitoids but only occurs at moderate frequencies in most aphid populations. This suggests that harbouring this symbiont is also associated with costs, yet the nature of these costs has remained elusive. Here, we demonstrate an important and clearly defined cost: reduced longevity. Experimental infections with six different isolates of H. defensa caused strongly reduced lifespans in two different clones of the black bean aphid, Aphis fabae, resulting in a significantly lower lifetime reproduction. However, the two aphid clones were unequally affected by the presence of H. defensa, and the magnitude of the longevity cost was further determined by genotype × genotype interactions between host and symbiont, which has important consequences for their coevolution.

Heritable bacterial endosymbionts play an important role in aphid ecology. Sequence-based evidence suggests that facultative symbionts such as Hamiltonella defensa or Regiella insecticola also undergo horizontal transmission. Other than through male-to-female transfer during the sexual generation in autumn, the routes by which this occurs remain largely unknown. Here, we tested if parasitoids or ectoparasitic mites can act as vectors for horizontal transfer of facultative symbionts. Using symbiont-specific primers for diagnostic PCR, we demonstrate for the first time, to our knowledge, that parasitoids can indeed transfer H. defensa and R. insecticola by sequentially stabbing infected and uninfected individuals of their host, Aphis fabae , establishing new, heritable infections. Thus, a natural route of horizontal symbiont transmission is also available during the many clonal generations of the aphid life cycle. No transmissions by ectoparasitic mites were observed, nor did parasitoids that emerged from symbiont-infected aphids transfer any symbionts in our experiments.

Understanding the coevolution of hosts and parasites is a long‐standing goal of evolutionary biology. There is a well‐developed theoretical framework to describe the evolution of host–parasite interactions under the assumption of direct, two‐species interactions, which can result in arms race dynamics or sustained genotype fluctuations driven by negative frequency dependence (Red Queen dynamics). However, many hosts rely on symbionts for defence against parasites. Whilst the ubiquity of defensive symbionts and their potential importance for disease control are increasingly recognized, there is still a gap in our understanding of how symbionts mediate or possibly take part in host–parasite coevolution. Herein we address this question by synthesizing information already available from theoretical and empirical studies. First, we briefly introduce current hypotheses on how defensive mutualisms evolved from more parasitic relationships and highlight exciting new experimental evidence showing that this can occur very rapidly. We go on to show that defensive symbionts influence virtually all important determinants of coevolutionary dynamics, namely the variation in host resistance available to selection by parasites, the specificity of host resistance, and the trade‐off structure between host resistance and other components of fitness. In light of these findings, we turn to the limited theory and experiments available for such three‐species interactions to assess the role of defensive symbionts in host–parasite coevolution. Specifically, we discuss under which conditions the defensive symbiont may take over from the host the reciprocal adaptation with parasites and undergo its own selection dynamics, thereby altering or relaxing selection on the hosts' own immune defences. Finally, we address potential effects of defensive symbionts on the evolution of parasite virulence. This is an important problem for which there is no single, clear‐cut prediction. The selection on parasite virulence resulting from the presence of defensive symbionts in their hosts will depend on the underlying mechanism of defence. We identify the evolutionary predictions for different functional categories of symbiont‐conferred resistance and we evaluate the empirical literature for supporting evidence. We end this review with outstanding questions and promising avenues for future research to improve our understanding of symbiont‐mediated coevolution between hosts and parasites.