Effects of Wolbachia on mitochondrial DNA variation in populations of Athetis lepigone (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) in China

Abstract

Wolbachia are endosymbiotic bacteria that infect arthropods and incompatibility among strains can affect gene flow within host insect populations that can significantly result in host mitochondrial DNA (MtDNA) variation within or among populations. The effects of Wolbachia infection on Athetis lepigone MtDNA variation were studied across 12 geographical populations sampled from North China. Mitochondrial COI gene and Wolbachia wsp gene were both obtained from 423 individuals, including 46 Wolbachia infected and 377 uninfected individuals. Average A. lepigone infection rate was 11% (range: 0 to 26%), and wsp sequence variation defined three distinct Wolbachia strains; wLep1, wLep2, and wLep3, respectively. A haplotype network showed no relationship between A. lepigone MtDNA haplotype and Wolbachia infection. Furthermore, haplotype variation mainly exists within populations, although the proportion of variation is higher within uninfected compared to infected individuals. The lack of correlation between A. lepigone haplotype and Wolbachia strain, suggests symbiont infection may not affect mating compatibility or gene flow within host populations in China.

Prevalence and genetic diversity of Wolbachia endosymbiont and mtDNA in Palearctic populations of Drosophila melanogaster

“…Coinheritance of Wolbachia variants and host mtDNA haplotypes has been reported for different species [1, 7, 21, 53–58]. The association between D. melanogaster mtDNA and Wolbachia genotypes has also been demonstrated in several studies [32–34].…”

Global genetic diversity, lineage distribution, and Wolbachia infection of the alfalfa weevil Hypera postica (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)

“…Wolbachia host shift, which is also referred as horizontal transmission, is not a rare event in beetles and other arthropods (Bailly‐Bechet et al, ; Chrostek, Pelz‐Stelinski, Hurst, & Hughes, ; Lachowska, Kajtoch, & Knutelski, ; Tolley, Nonacs, & Sapountzis, ; Yun, Peng, Liu, & Lei, ). Generally, it is common to find various types of strains ( Wolbachia diversity) resulting from recent host shifts in a cosmopolitan host species, rather than a uniform infection of a certain strain across the host's range (Ali et al, ; Avtzis, Doudoumis, & Bourtzis, ; Chen et al, ; Chen, Zhang, Du, Jin, & Hong, ; Goryacheva, Blekhman, Andrianov, Gorelova, & Zakharov, ; Huchesh & Puttaraju, ; Jiang, Wu, He, Zhu, & Yu, ; Mariño, Verle Rodrigues, & Bayman, ). Our data suggest that in the alfalfa weevil, w Hypera1 is the predominant strain of Wolbachia across all populations.…”

Incomplete estimates of genetic diversity within species: Implications for DNA barcoding

“…A well‐known example of this is the symbiotic association of the bacterium Wolbachia with insects. Integration of Wolbachia within host genomes of various Hymenoptera, Diptera, and Lepidoptera can cause fluctuations in intraspecific distances (Smith et al., ) and thus observed haplotype diversity between infected and uninfected hosts (Chen et al., ). Misamplification of host sequences for bacterial symbionts is widely encountered, as is the amplification of pseudogenes/NUMTs.…”

“…In spite of this, global barcoding efforts have only been partially successful in capturing the full extent of COI barcode variation in animals due to the majority of studies forgoing deep taxon sampling in favor of maximizing the number of different taxa sampled (Matz & Nielsen, 2005;Zhang et al, 2010). Sample sizes of a few individuals per species (typically in the range of 5-10, but one or two specimens is not uncommon since these are often the only representatives available, either due to unclear species boundaries or limited geo- (Smith et al, 2012) and thus observed haplotype diversity between infected and uninfected hosts (Chen et al, 1984). Misamplification of host sequences for bacterial symbionts is widely encountered, as is the amplification of pseudogenes/NUMTs.…”