Genetic interactions between the parasitoid wasp Leptopilina boulardi and its Drosophila hosts

Coevolutionary arms races between hosts and parasites would not occur without genetic variation for traits involved in the outcome of parasitism. Genetic variations in resistance and virulence have only rarely been described in pairwise host-parasitoid interactions and have never been analysed in mu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Heredity 2007, Vol.98 (98), p.21-27
Main Authors: Dubuffet, A, Dupas, S, Frey, F, Drezen, J.M, Poirie, M, Carton, Y
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
coevolution
dominance (genetics)
Drosophila melanogaster
Drosophila yakuba
Genetics
geographical variation
host-parasite relationships
inheritance (genetics)
Leptopilina boulardi
Life Sciences
parasitism
parasitoids
pest resistance
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Summary:Coevolutionary arms races between hosts and parasites would not occur without genetic variation for traits involved in the outcome of parasitism. Genetic variations in resistance and virulence have only rarely been described in pairwise host-parasitoid interactions and have never been analysed in multi-species interactions, in contrast to well-characterized plant-pathogen interactions. This paper reports genetic variation in resistance of Drosophila yakuba to the parasitoid wasp Leptopilina boulardi. The genetic basis and geographic distribution of resistance is analysed. On the basis of these and previous findings, we demonstrate that there are different resistance patterns to the parasitoid species L. boulardi in D. melanogaster and D. yakuba, as well as different specificity levels in the parasitoid species, suggesting complex ecological interactions in the field. This first description of resistance-virulence genetic interactions between a parasitoid and its two host species provides empirical data showing that multi-species interactions may greatly influence coevolutionary processes.
ISSN:0018-067X
1365-2540
0018-067X