DMCA
Variable fitness effects of Wolbachia infection in Drosophila melanogaster (2004)
| Venue: | Heredity |
| Citations: | 12 - 0 self |
BibTeX
@ARTICLE{Fry04variablefitness,
author = {Aj Fry and Mr Palmer and Dm R},
title = {Variable fitness effects of Wolbachia infection in Drosophila melanogaster},
journal = {Heredity},
year = {2004},
pages = {379--389}
}
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Abstract
Maternally inherited Wolbachia bacteria are extremely wide-spread among insects and their presence is usually associated with parasitic modifications of host fitness. Wolbachia pipientis infects Drosophila melanogaster popula-tions from all continents, but their persistence in this species occurs despite any strong parasitic effects. Here, we have investigated the symbiosis between Wolbachia and D. melanogaster and found that Wolbachia infection can have significant survival and fecundity effects. Relative to unin-fected flies, infected females from three fly strains showed enhanced survival or fecundity associated with Wolbachia infection, one strain showed both and one strain responded positively to Wolbachia removal. We found no difference in egg hatch rates (cytoplasmic incompatibility) for crosses between infected males and uninfected females, although there were fecundity differences. Females from this cross consistently produced fewer eggs than infected females and these fecundity differences could promote the spread of infection just like cytoplasmic incompatibility. More surpris-ing, we found that infected females often had the greatest fecundity when mated to uninfected males. This could also promote the spread of Wolbachia infection, though here the fitness benefits would also help to spread infection when Wolbachia are rare. We suggest that variable fitness effects, in both sexes, and which interact strongly with the genetic background of the host, could increase cytoplasmic drive rates in some genotypes and help explain the widespread persistence of Wolbachia bacteria in D. melanogaster populations. These interactions may further explain why many D. melanogaster populations are polymorphic for Wolbachia infection. We discuss our results in the context of host–symbiont co-evolution. Heredity advance online publication, 11 August 2004; doi:10.1038/sj.hdy.6800514
Keyphrases
wolbachia infection variable fitness effect drosophila melanogaster cytoplasmic incompatibility fecundity difference wolbachia bacteria melanogaster population infected female parasitic modification wolbachia removal host symbiont co-evolution unin-fected fly strong parasitic effect fly strain uninfected male cytoplasmic drive rate wolbachia pipientis infects drosophila genetic background significant survival host fitness heredity advance online publication egg hatch rate fitness benefit fecundity effect widespread persistence enhanced survival uninfected female
