Wolbachia-induced cytoplasmic incompatibility as a means for insect pest population control.

Biological control is the purposeful introduction of parasites, predators, and pathogens to reduce or suppress pest populations. Wolbachia are inherited bacteria of arthropods that have recently attracted attention for their potential as new biocontrol agents. Wolbachia manipulate host reproduction by using several strategies, one of which is cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) [Stouthamer, R.

Tracing the history of an enzyme polymorphism: the case of alcohol dehydrogenase-2 (Adh-2) of the olive fruit fly Bactrocera oleae.

In the olive fruit fly Bactrocera oleae, previous studies have described a one-locus three-allele electrophoretic polymorphism of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase and provided evidence that the polymorphism is under the influence of selection. A recent study has shown that this species carries a two-locus duplication for alcohol dehydrogenase. Here, we show that the polymorphism maps at one of the duplicated loci, Adh2, and identify the nucleotide and, therefore, the inferred amino acid differences among the three allozymes.