The distribution and evolutionary history of Wolbachia infection in native and introduced populations of the invasive argentine ant (Linepithema humile)

Wolbachia pipientis is a maternally transmitted bacterium that often alters the life history of its insect host to maximize transmission to subsequent generations. Here we report on the frequency and distribution of Wolbachia infection in a widespread invasive species, the Argentine ant (Linepithema...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Molecular ecology 2003-11, Vol.12 (11), p.3057-3068
Main Authors: Tsutsui, Neil D., Kauppinen, Seth N., Oyafuso, Alain F., Grosberg, Richard K.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Ants - microbiology
Base Sequence
Bayes Theorem
cytoplasmic sex ratio distorters
DNA, Mitochondrial - genetics
Electrophoresis, Agar Gel
Formicidae
ftsZ
Genetic Markers - genetics
Genetics, Population
Geography
horizontal transmission
Likelihood Functions
Linepithema humile
Models, Genetic
Molecular Sequence Data
Phylogeny
selfish elements
Sequence Analysis, DNA
social insects
Wolbachia
Wolbachia - genetics
Wolbachia - physiology
wsp
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Wolbachia pipientis is a maternally transmitted bacterium that often alters the life history of its insect host to maximize transmission to subsequent generations. Here we report on the frequency and distribution of Wolbachia infection in a widespread invasive species, the Argentine ant (Linepithema humile). We screened 1175 individual Argentine ants from 89 nests on five continents and several islands, including numerous locations in both the native (South American) and introduced ranges. We detected Wolbachia in four of 11 native populations, but only one of 21 introduced populations was infected. In the Argentine ant's native range, the distribution of Wolbachia supergroups A and B was nonoverlapping. By coupling infection frequency data with behaviourally defined colony boundaries, we show that infected and uninfected colonies are often adjacent to one another, supporting the proposition that little female‐mediated gene flow occurs among Argentine ant colonies. We also conduct a phylogenetic analysis, and show that the Wolbachia infecting both native and introduced populations of Argentine ants belong to two lineages that appear to be specialized on infecting New World ants. One other lineage of Wolbachia has undergone frequent, recent episodes of horizontal transmission between distantly related, introduced insect hosts.
ISSN:0962-1083
1365-294X
DOI:10.1046/j.1365-294X.2003.01979.x