Abstract
Determining the drivers of diversity is a major topic in biology. Due to its high level of micro-endemism in many taxa, Madagascar has been described as one of Earth's biodiversity hotspot. The exceptional Malagasy biodiversity has been shown to be the result of various eco-evolutionary mechanisms that have taken place on this large island since its isolation from other landmasses. Extensive phylogenetic analyses have, for example, revealed that most of the dung beetle radiation events have arisen due to allopatric speciation, and adaptation to altitudinal and/or longitudinal gradients. But other biotic factors, that have yet to be identified, might also be at play. Wolbachia is a maternally transmitted endosymbiotic bacterium widespread in insects. The bacterium is well-known for its ability to modify its host reproductive system in ways that may lead to either discordance patterns between the host mitochondrial and nuclear phylogenies, and in some cases to speciation. Here, we used the MultiLocus Sequence Typing system, to identify and characterize five Wolbachia strains infecting several species within the Nanos clypeatus dung beetle clade. We discuss the implications of these Wolbachia strains for the evolution and diversification of their dung beetle hosts in Madagascar. (Less)
Highlights
With roughly 200,000 species of which at least 90% are endemic to the Island, Madagascar is one of the Earth’s richest biodiversity hotspots (Paulian, 1987; Myers et al, 2000; Vences et al, 2009)
Our study focuses on the six species composing the “Nanos clypeatus clade,” namely N. clypeatus, N. dubitatus, N. veittei, N. pseudoviettei, N. mirjae, and N. nitens (Miraldo and Hanski, 2014; Montreuil et al, 2014)
We characterized a total of five Wolbachia strains (Figure 2) from four of the six species screened (N. clypeatus, N. veittei, N. pseudoviettei, and N. dubitatus)
Summary
With roughly 200,000 species of which at least 90% are endemic to the Island, Madagascar is one of the Earth’s richest biodiversity hotspots (Paulian, 1987; Myers et al, 2000; Vences et al, 2009). The genus Nanos includes 42 species of dung beetles endemic to Madagascar (Montreuil et al, 2014) This clade is considered one of the most recent and ecologically successful dung beetle lineages in Madagascar (Wirta, 2009; Wirta et al, 2010). The phylogeny of this clade was recently revisited by combining morphological and molecular data from both mitochondrial and Wolbachia in Endemic Dung Beetles nuclear markers (Wirta, 2009; Montreuil et al, 2014). Wirta (2009) showed that the mitochondrial DNA of the six species from the N. clypeatus group was less variable than that of the rest of the Nanos species
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