Abstract
Intracellular bacteria of the genus Wolbachia (α-Proteobacteria) are the most widespread endosymbionts of insects. Host infection is usually associated with alterations in reproduction, such as cytoplasmic incompatibility, the induction of parthenogenesis and offspring sex ratio bias: all phenomena that may influence host speciation. In the present study, by using well-established molecular tools, we investigated the presence of Wolbachia in leaf beetles of the genus Crioceris and their host plants, which are various species of Asparagus. Multilocus sequence typing of bacterial genes showed that despite their occurrence in the same habitat and feeding on the same plant, two species of Crioceris, C. quinquepunctata and C. quatuordecimpunctata, are infected by two different strains of Wolbachia. C. asparagi, C. paracenthesis and C. duodecimpunctata, which are sympatric with the infected species, do not harbour the bacterium. Interestingly, DNA of Wolbachia was detected in host plant tissues that are exploited by the beetles, providing evidence for the horizontal transmission of the bacterium between beetles and their host plants. Moreover, Wolbachia was detected in species of Crioceris that are not closely related.
Highlights
Wolbachia is a maternally-inherited, Gram-negative bacterium belonging to the α-Proteobacteria (Riegler & O’Neill, 2006), which infect Arthropoda and Nematoda
The allelic profiles obtained from infected species of Crioceris did not have identical profiles in the Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST) database
Strain A was identical in three genes, whereas hcpA and fructose-bisphosphate adolase (fbpA) differed by 1% from most similar alleles in the MLST database; while, strain B was identical in four genes, whereas gatB differed by 1% from the most similar alleles in the MLST database
Summary
Wolbachia is a maternally-inherited, Gram-negative bacterium belonging to the α-Proteobacteria (Riegler & O’Neill, 2006), which infect Arthropoda (mostly insects and spiders) and Nematoda. The possibility that Wolbachia could spread horizontally across food chains is highly debated, and evidence supporting this possibility has recently been provided by studies that detected DNA from the bacterium in uninfected predators that fed on infected prey (Johanowicz & Hoy, 1996; Huigens et al, 2004; Clec’h et al, 2013). It has been suggested that host-parasitoid interactions may be a mechanism for the spread of Wolbachia among species (Vavre et al, 1999). This hypothesis is supported by several studies (e.g. Van Meer et al, 1999; Noda et al, 2001; Ahmed et al, 2015). Mitsuhashi et al (2002) and Sintupachee et al (2006) propose that Wolbachia could spread to other hosts by feeding
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