Inter-population variation for Wolbachia induced reproductive incompatibility in the haplodiploid mite Tetranychus urticae

Abstract

Recent studies have revealed diverse patterns of cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) induced by Wolbachia in the two spotted spider mite (Tetranychus urticae Koch). The mechanism of CI consists of two steps: modification (mod) of sperm of infected males and the rescue (resc) of these chromosomes by Wolbachia in the egg, which results in female embryonic mortality (FM), male development (MD) or no CI. Our study reports that Wolbachia infections were highly prevalent infecting all T. urticae populations from various crops in 14 commercial greenhouses in Korea, with two Wolbachia strains expressing distinctive phenotypic effects on hosts. Analyses for wsp gene sequences obtained from collected mite populations revealed all sequences were categorized into two groups (group W1 and W2) discriminated by three diagnostic nucleotides while all Wolbachia strains belonged to the subgroup Ori in Wolbachia supergroup B. Host plants of each mite population were also generally correlated this grouping. Various mating experiments with two mite populations from each group showed that CI patterns and host plants of the mite populations were completely matched with the grouping; no CI (mod(-)resc(+)) for group W1 and mixed pattern of FM and MD (mod(+)resc(+)) for group W2. No distinct changes in fecundity or sex ratio due to Wolbachia infections were observed in four mite populations regardless of Wolbachia grouping. Our study suggests a potential correlation between phenotypic effect of Wolbachia infection and its genetic diversity associated with host plants in Korean mite populations.

Symbiosis in an overlooked microcosm: a systematic review of the bacterial flora of mites

“…In particular, use of 16S rDNA PCR with bacterial species-specific primers has been widely used for bacterial taxonomic studies in mites (Fig. For example, the protein-coding genes: ftsZ, groEL, wsp and citrate synthase (gltA) were used in Wolbachia studies (Hong et al 2002;Gotoh et al 2005;Yu et al 2011;Lu et al 2012;Ros et al 2012;Suh et al 2014;Glowska et al 2015;Zhang et al 2015); outer membrane protein B gene, 17 kD antigenic gene and gltA were used for Rickettsia spp. Additionally, several publications used specific PCR to amplify other bacterial genes of interest.…”

Transcriptome of Tetranychus urticae embryos reveals insights into Wolbachia‐induced cytoplasmic incompatibility

“…The two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae Koch, is a cosmopolitan agricultural pest with an extensive host plant range and strong pesticide resistance (Van Leeuwen et al, 2010;Attia et al, 2013). In T. urticae, Wolbachia was detected in all surveyed populations, with the infection rate varying from 2.5 to 80% (Xie et al, 2006), and was reported to induce variable phenotypes of CI, ranging from no CI to complete CI (Vala et al, 2000(Vala et al, , 2002Perrot-Minnot et al, 2002;Xie et al, 2011;Zhao et al, 2013;Suh et al, 2015;Sun et al, 2016). T. urticae is haplodiploid, which means the fertilized eggs have two sets of chromosomes and develop into diploid females, whereas the unfertilized eggs have only one set of chromosomes and develop into males.…”

Wolbachiaboth aids and hampers the performance of spider mites on different host plants

“…Indeed, Wolbachia being maternally transmitted, it should always benefit from a more female-biased sex ratio. Note that, although Wolbachia may induce cytoplasmic incompatibility in T. urticae (Gotoh et al , 2007, Xie et al , 2011, Suh et al , 2015), the effects observed in this study on spider-mite sex ratio cannot be attributed to this phenotype as it involves a cross between infected males and uninfected females, which was not performed here. On purple, we could expect the prevalence of Wolbachia to be intermediate, as the infection decreases egg hatchability but increases female proportion.…”

“…Among them, Wolbachia is the most prevalent (Liu et al , 2006, Gotoh et al , 2007, Ros & Breeuwer, 2009, Zhang et al , 2016, Zélé et al , 2018) and induces variable fitness effects in spider mites. For instance, it can decrease (Perrot-Minnot et al , 2002, Suh et al , 2015), not affect (Breeuwer, 1997, Vala et al , 2000, Perrot-Minnot et al , 2002, Vala et al , 2002, Gotoh et al , 2007), or increase (Vala et al , 2002, Gotoh et al , 2007, Xie et al , 2011) their fecundity. Given these variable effects, it is as yet unclear whether Wolbachia will facilitate or hamper host-plant colonization by spider mites.…”