Prevalence and relationship of endosymbiotic Wolbachia in the butterfly genus Erebia

BACKGROUND: Wolbachia is an endosymbiont common to most invertebrates, which can have significant evolutionary implications for its host species by acting as a barrier to gene flow. Despite the importance of Wolbachia, still little is known about its prevalence and diversification pattern among clos...

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Autores principales: Lucek, Kay, Bouaouina, Selim, Jospin, Amanda, Grill, Andrea, de Vos, Jurriaan M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8140509/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34020585
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-021-01822-9
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author Lucek, Kay
Bouaouina, Selim
Jospin, Amanda
Grill, Andrea
de Vos, Jurriaan M.
author_facet Lucek, Kay
Bouaouina, Selim
Jospin, Amanda
Grill, Andrea
de Vos, Jurriaan M.
author_sort Lucek, Kay
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Wolbachia is an endosymbiont common to most invertebrates, which can have significant evolutionary implications for its host species by acting as a barrier to gene flow. Despite the importance of Wolbachia, still little is known about its prevalence and diversification pattern among closely related host species. Wolbachia strains may phylogenetically coevolve with their hosts, unless horizontal host-switches are particularly common. We address  these issues in the genus Erebia, one of the most diverse Palearctic butterfly genera. RESULTS: We sequenced the Wolbachia genome from a strain infecting Erebia cassioides and showed that it belongs to the Wolbachia supergroup B, capable of infecting arthropods from different taxonomic orders. The prevalence of Wolbachia across 13 closely related Erebia host species based on extensive population-level genetic data revealed that multiple Wolbachia strains jointly infect all investigated taxa, but with varying prevalence. Finally, the phylogenetic relationships of Wolbachia strains are in some cases significantly associated to that of their hosts, especially among the most closely related Erebia species, demonstrating mixed evidence for phylogenetic coevolution. CONCLUSIONS: Closely related host species can be infected by closely related Wolbachia strains, evidencing some phylogenetic coevolution, but the actual pattern of infection more often reflects historical or contemporary geographic proximity among host species. Multiple processes, including survival in distinct glacial refugia, recent host shifts in sympatry, and a loss of Wolbachia during postglacial range expansion seem to have jointly shaped the complex interactions between Wolbachia evolution and the diversification of its host among our studied Erebia species. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12862-021-01822-9.
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spelling pubmed-81405092021-05-25 Prevalence and relationship of endosymbiotic Wolbachia in the butterfly genus Erebia Lucek, Kay Bouaouina, Selim Jospin, Amanda Grill, Andrea de Vos, Jurriaan M. BMC Ecol Evol Research BACKGROUND: Wolbachia is an endosymbiont common to most invertebrates, which can have significant evolutionary implications for its host species by acting as a barrier to gene flow. Despite the importance of Wolbachia, still little is known about its prevalence and diversification pattern among closely related host species. Wolbachia strains may phylogenetically coevolve with their hosts, unless horizontal host-switches are particularly common. We address  these issues in the genus Erebia, one of the most diverse Palearctic butterfly genera. RESULTS: We sequenced the Wolbachia genome from a strain infecting Erebia cassioides and showed that it belongs to the Wolbachia supergroup B, capable of infecting arthropods from different taxonomic orders. The prevalence of Wolbachia across 13 closely related Erebia host species based on extensive population-level genetic data revealed that multiple Wolbachia strains jointly infect all investigated taxa, but with varying prevalence. Finally, the phylogenetic relationships of Wolbachia strains are in some cases significantly associated to that of their hosts, especially among the most closely related Erebia species, demonstrating mixed evidence for phylogenetic coevolution. CONCLUSIONS: Closely related host species can be infected by closely related Wolbachia strains, evidencing some phylogenetic coevolution, but the actual pattern of infection more often reflects historical or contemporary geographic proximity among host species. Multiple processes, including survival in distinct glacial refugia, recent host shifts in sympatry, and a loss of Wolbachia during postglacial range expansion seem to have jointly shaped the complex interactions between Wolbachia evolution and the diversification of its host among our studied Erebia species. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12862-021-01822-9. BioMed Central 2021-05-21 /pmc/articles/PMC8140509/ /pubmed/34020585 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-021-01822-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Lucek, Kay
Bouaouina, Selim
Jospin, Amanda
Grill, Andrea
de Vos, Jurriaan M.
Prevalence and relationship of endosymbiotic Wolbachia in the butterfly genus Erebia
title Prevalence and relationship of endosymbiotic Wolbachia in the butterfly genus Erebia
title_full Prevalence and relationship of endosymbiotic Wolbachia in the butterfly genus Erebia
title_fullStr Prevalence and relationship of endosymbiotic Wolbachia in the butterfly genus Erebia
title_full_unstemmed Prevalence and relationship of endosymbiotic Wolbachia in the butterfly genus Erebia
title_short Prevalence and relationship of endosymbiotic Wolbachia in the butterfly genus Erebia
title_sort prevalence and relationship of endosymbiotic wolbachia in the butterfly genus erebia
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8140509/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34020585
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-021-01822-9
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