“…We predict that deep genomic analyses from such novel and/or neglected lineages, as in case of Sarmatiella and several recent others (Sassera et al ., 2011; Mediannikov et al ., 2014; Pilgrim et al ., 2017), in particular those associated with aquatic hosts (Schulz et al ., 2016; Floriano et al ., 2018; Yurchenko et al ., 2018; Gruber‐Vodicka et al ., 2019; Klinges et al ., 2019; Castelli et al ., 2019a; George et al ., 2020), will offer a wider comparative perspective, for a better reconstruction of the evolutionary paths of Rickettsiales and the underlying genomic processes. Additionally, a better understanding of their interaction with the hosts, including through transcriptome analyses (see as examples Yang et al ., 2016; Gruber‐Vodicka et al ., 2019; Pirritano et al ., 2020; Midha et al ., 2020), may significantly contribute as well, providing validated functional grounds for comparative and evolutionary inferences.…”