Wolbachia in scale insects: a distinct pattern of infection frequencies and potential transfer routes via ant associates
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Lin, Yen-Po
Cook, Lyn G
Engelstadter, Jan
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Abstract
Wolbachia is one of the most successful endosymbiotic bacteria of arthropods. Known as the ‘master of manipulation’, Wolbachia can induce a wide range of phenotypes in its host that can have far-reaching ecological and evolutionary consequences and may be exploited for disease and pest control. However, our knowledge of Wolbachia's distribution and the infection rate is unevenly distributed across arthropod groups such as scale insects. We fitted a distribution of within-species prevalence of Wolbachia to our data and compared it to distributions fitted to an up-to-date dataset compiled from surveys across all arthropods. The estimated distribution parameters indicate a Wolbachia infection frequency of 43.6% (at a 10% prevalence threshold) in scale insects. Prevalence of Wolbachia in scale insects follows a distribution similar to exponential decline (most species are predicted to have low prevalence infections), in contrast to the U-shaped distribution estimated for other taxa (most species have a very low or very high prevalence). We observed no significant associations between Wolbachia infection and scale insect traits. Finally, we screened for Wolbachia in scale insect's ecological associates. We found a positive correlation between Wolbachia infection in scale insects and their ant associates, pointing to a possible route of horizontal transfer of Wolbachia.
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Environmental Microbiology
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24
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3
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© 2022 Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Wolbachia in scale insects: a distinct pattern of infection frequencies and potential transfer routes via ant associates, Environmental Microbiology, 24 (3), pp. 1326-1339, 2022, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.15833. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited.
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Evolutionary biology
Microbiology
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Life Sciences & Biomedicine
CYTOPLASMIC INCOMPATIBILITY
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Sanaei, E; Lin, Y-P; Cook, LG; Engelstadter, J, Wolbachia in scale insects: a distinct pattern of infection frequencies and potential transfer routes via ant associates, Environmental Microbiology, 2022, 24 (3), pp. 1326-1339