Earlier this month, the Jaenike Lab published an article in Science on their striking discovery of adaptation via symbiosis in wild populations of the fruit fly Drosophila neotestacea.  Using flies sampled from across North American over the past three decades, their work illustrates rapid and profoundly important spread of a bacterial symbiont that defends the flies against the sterilizing effects of a parasitic nematode.  This work illustrates one of nature’s more unexpected strategies, and one that only became evident after decades of careful study in the field and laboratory.  The Jaenike Lab’s work on adaptation via symbiosis has already been featured in outlets like Discover Magazine and the Guardian.