ECOLOGY, BEHAVIOR AND BIONOMICS Wolbachia in Two Populations of Melittobia digitata Dahms (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae)
نویسندگان
چکیده
We investigated two populations of Melittobia digitata Dahms, a gregarious parasitoid (primarily upon a wide range of solitary bees, wasps, and fl ies), in search of Wolbachia infection. The fi rst population, from Xalapa, Mexico, was originally collected from and reared on Mexican fruit fl y pupae, Anastrepha ludens Loew (Diptera: Tephritidae); the other, from Athens, Georgia, was collected from and reared on prepupae of mud dauber wasps, Trypoxylon politum Say (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae). PCR studies of the ITS2 region corroborated that both parasitoid populations were the same species; this potentially provides a useful molecular taxonomic profi le since females of Melittobia species are superfi cially similar. Amplifi cation of the Wolbachia surface protein gene (wsp) confi rmed the presence of this endosymbiont in both populations. Sequencing revealed that the Wolbachia harbored in both populations exhibited a wsp belonging to a unique subgroup (denoted here as Dig) within the B-supergroup of known wsp genes. This new subgroup of wsp may either belong to a different strain of Wolbachia from those previously found to infect Melittobia or may be the result of a recombination event. In either case, known hosts of Wolbachia with a wsp of this subgroup are only distantly related taxonomically. Reasons are advanced as to why Melittobia – an easily reared and managed parasitoid – holds promise as an instructive model organism of Wolbachia infection amenable to the investigation of Wolbachia strains among its diverse hosts.
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