Abstract
Wolbachia are endosymbiotic bacteria that commonly infect arthropods, inducing certain phenotypes in their hosts. So far, no endemic South American species of terrestrial isopods have been investigated for Wolbachia infection. In this work, populations from two species of Balloniscus (B. sellowii and B. glaber) were studied through a diagnostic PCR assay. Fifteen new Wolbachia 16S rDNA sequences were detected. Wolbachia found in both species were generally specific to one population, and five populations hosted two different Wolbachia 16S rDNA sequences. Prevalence was higher in B. glaber than in B. sellowii, but uninfected populations could be found in both species. Wolbachia strains from B. sellowii had a higher genetic variation than those isolated from B. glaber. AMOVA analyses showed that most of the genetic variance was distributed among populations of each species rather than between species, and the phylogenetic analysis suggested that Wolbachia strains from Balloniscus cluster within Supergroup B, but do not form a single monophyletic clade, suggesting multiple infections for this group. Our results highlight the importance of studying Wolbachia prevalence and genetic diversity in Neotropical species and suggest that South American arthropods may harbor a great number of diverse strains, providing an interesting model to investigate the evolution of Wolbachia and its hosts.
Highlights
Wolbachia are maternally transmitted alpha-proteobacteria known to infect a wide range of arthropods and nematodes, where they can be found in either germ line or somatic tissues (Bandi et al, 1998; O’Neill et al, 1997; Werren et al, 1995a)
265 individuals of B. sellowii were sampled in 13 populations with 42 of them being infected, while for B. glaber 254 individuals were sampled in nine populations with 99 individuals being infected (Table 1)
B. sellowii showed no differences of prevalence between males (13%) and females (17%) (Logistic regression, Wald test, p = 0.9998), while B. glaber showed a higher Wolbachia prevalence in females (45%) than in males (23%); (Logistic regression Wald test; p < 0.001)
Summary
Wolbachia are maternally transmitted alpha-proteobacteria known to infect a wide range of arthropods and nematodes, where they can be found in either germ line or somatic tissues (Bandi et al, 1998; O’Neill et al, 1997; Werren et al, 1995a). Almost all Wolbachia strains from terrestrial isopods belong to Supergroup B, based on 16 rDNA and ftsZ sequences and corroborated by wsp and groEL phylogenies (Bouchon et al, 1998; Cordaux et al, 2001; Baldo et al, 2006b; Wiwatanaratanabutr et al, 2009).
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