Weevils constitute the most species-rich animal group with over 60,000 described species, many of which possess specialized symbiotic organs and harbor bacterial endosymbionts. Among the diverse microbial associates of weevils, Nardonella spp. represent the most ancient and widespread endosymbiont lineage, having co-speciated with the host weevils for over 125 million years. Thus far, however, no empirical work on the role of Nardonella for weevil biology has been reported. Here we investigated the biological role of the Nardonella endosymbiont for the West Indian sweet potato weevil, Euscepes postfasciatus. This insect is an experimentally tractable pest insect that can easily be reared on a natural diet of sweet potato root as well as on an agar-based artificial diet. By larval feeding on an antibiotic-containing artificial diet, Nardonella infection was effectively eliminated from the treated insects. The antibiotic-treated insects exhibited significantly lighter body weight and lower growth rate than the control insects. Then, the antibiotic-treated insects and the control insects were respectively allowed to mate and oviposit on fresh sweet potatoes without the antibiotic. The offspring of the antibiotic-treated insects, which were all Nardonella-negative, exhibited significantly lighter body weight, smaller body size, lower growth rate and paler body color in comparison with the offspring of the control insects, which were all Nardonella-positive. In conclusion, the Nardonella endosymbiont is involved in normal growth and development of the host weevil. The biological role of the endosymbiont probably underlies the long-lasting host-symbiont co-speciation in the evolutionary course of weevils.

No abstract

Male body size is considered to be one of the major determinants of mating success among many insect species. Because the effectiveness of the sterile insect technique (SIT) depends on the ability of released sterile males to mate with and inseminate wild females, it is indispensable to understand the effect of male body size on the mating behavior of both sexes for the progress of the SIT program. We investigated how male body size and the presence of other rival males affect the guarding and copulatory durations of the West Indian sweetpotato weevil, Euscepes postfasciatus (Fairmaire) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae). In this species, males guard females before and after copulation. By observing the mating behavior under two sex-ratio conditions (male-to-female ratios of 1:1 and 2:1), we found that small males hastened to court females when rival males were present, but the females rejected these small males as mates. Therefore, we consider that female weevils adopt a counter-adaptation for mate preference in response to this male mating strategy. Body size did not affect the durations of copulation and post-copulatory guarding. Although we found a conditional mating strategy for body size in E. postfasciatus, it is unlikely to have a large influence on the weevil-eradication program using SIT.

BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses.