Long-term spatio-temporal genetic structure of an accidental parasitoid introduction, and local changes in prevalence of its associated Wolbachia symbiont

Abstract

Population bottlenecks associated with founder events strongly impact the establishment and genetic makeup of populations. In addition to their genotype, founding individuals also bring along symbionts that can manipulate the phenotype of their host, affecting the host population establishment, dynamics and evolution. Thus, to understand introduction, invasion, and spread, we should identify the roles played by accompanying symbionts. In 1991, the parasitoid wasp, Hyposoter horticola, and its associated hyperparasitoid were accidentally introduced from the main Åland islands, Finland, to an isolated island in the archipelago, along with their host, the Glanville fritillary butterfly. Though the receiving island was unoccupied, the butterfly was present on some of the small islands in the vicinity. The three species have persisted as small populations ever since. A strain of the endosymbiotic bacterium Wolbachia has an intermediate prevalence in the H. horticola across the main Åland population. The infection increases susceptibility of the parasitoid to hyperparasitism. We investigated the establishment and spread of the parasitoid, along with patterns of prevalence of its symbiont using 323 specimens collected between 1992 and 2013, from five localities across Åland, including the source and introduced populations. Using 14 microsatellites and one mitochondrial marker, we suggest that the relatively diverse founding population and occasional migration between islands might have facilitated the persistence of all isolated populations, despite multiple local population crashes. We also show local near-fixation of Wolbachia, where the hyperparasitoid is absent, and selection against infected wasp genotypes is relaxed.

Positive fitness effects help explain the broad range of Wolbachia prevalences in natural populations

“…Often, there is no information on whether the symbiont induces CI or any other phenotype in their hosts (Duplouy, Couchoux, et al, 2015). The stability properties of reported low frequencies are rarely evaluated, as most studies report prevalence of the symbiont at a single time point; recurrent screenings of the same natural populations over the course of several generations are rare (however, see Duplouy, Couchoux, et al, 2015;Duplouy, Nair, et al, 2021;Kriesner et al, 2013). Hence, the changes in the infection frequencies through generations remain unknown, and it is difficult to determine stability of the infection frequency, let alone any existence of invasion barriers or other dynamical features of the system.…”