Endosymbiont diversity among sibling weevil species competing for the same resource

BMC Evolutionary Biology

Research Article

Abdelaziz Heddi¹  Agnès Vallier¹  Hélène Henri²  Frédéric Menu²  Samuel Venner²  Marie-Claude Bel-Venner²  Fabrice Vavre²  Adrien Merville³ 

[1] INSA-Lyon, UMR203 BF2I, INRA, Biologie Fonctionnelle Insectes et Interactions, Bat. L. Pasteur 20 ave A. Einstein, Villeurbanne, France;Université de Lyon, Université Lyon 1, CNRS, UMR5558, Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive, Villeurbanne, France;Université de Lyon, Université Lyon 1, CNRS, UMR5558, Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive, Villeurbanne, France;INSA-Lyon, UMR203 BF2I, INRA, Biologie Fonctionnelle Insectes et Interactions, Bat. L. Pasteur 20 ave A. Einstein, Villeurbanne, France;

关键词: Endosymbiosis;    Host community;    Curculio;    Oak weevil;    Infection pattern;    Niche partitioning;    Field study;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2148-13-28

 received in 2012-09-03, accepted in 2013-01-30,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundWhereas the impact of endosymbionts on the ecology of their hosts is well known in some insect species, the question of whether host communities are influenced by endosymbionts remains largely unanswered. Notably, the coexistence of host species competing with each other, which is expected to be stabilized by their ecological differences, could be facilitated by differences in their endosymbionts. Yet, the composition of endosymbiotic communities housed by natural communities of competing host species is still almost unknown. In this study, we started filling this gap by describing and comparing the bacterial endosymbiotic communities of four sibling weevil species (Curculio spp.) that compete with each other to lay eggs into oak acorns (Quercus spp.) and exhibit marked ecological differences.ResultsAll four species housed the primary endosymbiont Candidatus Curculioniphilus buchneri, yet each of these had a clearly distinct community of secondary endosymbionts, including Rickettsia, Spiroplasma, and two Wolbachia strains. Notably, three weevil species harbored their own predominant facultative endosymbiont and possessed the remaining symbionts at a residual infection level.ConclusionsThe four competing species clearly harbor distinct endosymbiotic communities. We discuss how such endosymbiotic communities could spread and keep distinct in the four insect species, and how these symbionts might affect the organization and species richness of host communities.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Merville et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013