Abstract
Wolbachia are maternally inherited bacterial endosymbionts that naturally infect a diverse array of arthropods. They are primarily known for their manipulation of host reproductive biology, and recently, infections with Wolbachia have been proposed as a new strategy for controlling insect vectors and subsequent human-transmissible diseases. Yet, Wolbachia abundance has been shown to vary greatly between individuals and the magnitude of the effects of infection on host life-history traits and protection against infection is correlated to within-host Wolbachia abundance. It is therefore essential to better understand the factors that modulate Wolbachia abundance and effects on host fitness. Nutrition is known to be one of the most important mediators of host-symbiont interactions. Here, we used nutritional geometry to quantify the role of macronutrients on insect-Wolbachia relationships in Drosophila melanogaster. Our results show fundamental interactions between diet composition, host diet selection, Wolbachia abundance and effects on host lifespan and fecundity. The results and methods described here open a new avenue in the study of insect-Wolbachia relationships and are of general interest to numerous research disciplines, ranging from nutrition and life-history theory to public health.
Highlights
The use of managed Wolbachia infections has been proposed as a new strategy for controlling vector-transmitted diseases, motivated by abundant evidence that insect vectors show modifications in several traits directly linked to their vectorial competence when infected either naturally or unnaturally with Wolbachia [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]
Because Wolbachia infection and diet have both been reported to influence host reproduction and longevity (Wolbachia: [44,45,46]; diet: [37]), we explored the functional significance of this interaction by measuring the reproductive rate and lifespan of Wolbachia-infected and non-infected flies confined to diets differing in their P : C ratio
This study provides the first investigation of the effects of dietary macronutrient balance on the relationships between Wolbachia and Drosophila
Summary
The use of managed Wolbachia infections has been proposed as a new strategy for controlling vector-transmitted diseases, motivated by abundant evidence that insect vectors show modifications in several traits directly linked to their vectorial competence when infected either naturally or unnaturally (i.e. transfected) with Wolbachia [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. Response landscapes were constructed using estimated food intake previously measured on 1000 flies that were individually fed from microcapillary tubes containing one of 28 diet solutions differing in yeast and sugar ratio and concentration [37] (electronic supplementary material, table S4). The amount of bacterial DNA was significantly correlated with midgut length, i.e. flies with larger digestive tracts hosted more bacteria (R2 1⁄4 0.348, n 1⁄4 21, p 1⁄4 0.005, figure 3b), including Wolbachia (R2 1⁄4 0.251, n 1⁄4 21, p 1⁄4 0.021, figure 3c) These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the impact of macronutrients, P, on total bacterial rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org Proc. Our results further emphasize the essential role of macronutrients, and are likely to be pertinent to a diverse range of research disciplines spanning from host nutrition and life-history theory to public health
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