Fossil findings of insect feeding damage on plants are evidence that insects have been using plants as a food source for more than 400 million years. Researchers led by Roy Kirsch and Yannick Pauchet ...

The new research, published in Science, describes a family of enzymes found in a microorganism called Phytophthora infestans. The enzymes enable crop pathogens to degrade pectin - a key component of ...

Pectin, a type of fiber in the cell walls of plants, helps give plants their structure (1). Apple pectin is extracted from apples, which are some of the richest sources of fiber. Roughly 15–20% of the ...

Coffee beans that pass through the digestive tracts of animals get their unique flavors from the activity of gut microbes, report researchers from the Institute of Science Tokyo. The guts of Asian ...

The study also found that these elephants had a more diverse mix of gut microbes, including bacteria linked to pectin digestion.