AI Article Synopsis

  • * In the newly described Drosophila pandora, researchers identified two Wolbachia strains: a CI strain that leads to high maternal transmission and an MK strain that kills male offspring, with both strains appearing to have unique genetic backgrounds.
  • * Population studies show that Wolbachia infections are widespread in Drosophila pandora, but the MK strain is rare; CI strain females likely have a fitness advantage, impacting infection dynamics and sex ratios in different breeding environments.

Article Abstract

Wolbachia infections have been described in several Drosophila species, but relatively few have been assessed for phenotypic effects. Cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) is the most common phenotypic effect that has been detected, while some infections cause male killing or feminization, and many Wolbachia infections have few host effects. Here, we describe two new infections in a recently described species, Drosophila pandora, one of which causes near-complete CI and near-perfect maternal transmission (the "CI" strain). The other infection is a male killer (the "MK" strain), which we confirm by observing reinitiation of male production following tetracycline treatment. No incompatibility was detected in crosses between CI strain males and MK strain females, and rare MK males do not cause CI. Molecular analyses indicate that the CI and MK infections are distantly related and the CI infection is closely related to the wRi infection of Drosophila simulans. Two population surveys indicate that all individuals are infected with Wolbachia, but the MK infection is uncommon. Given patterns of incompatibility among the strains, the infection dynamics is expected to be governed by the relative fitness of the females, suggesting that the CI infection should have a higher fitness. This was evidenced by changes in infection frequencies and sex ratios in population cages initiated at different starting frequencies of the infections.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4980230PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/evo.12981DOI Listing

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