High Incidence of Related Wolbachia across Unrelated Leaf-Mining Diptera

Abstract

The maternally inherited endosymbiont, Wolbachia pipientis, plays an important role in the ecology and evolution of many of its hosts by affecting host reproduction and fitness. Here, we investigated 13 dipteran leaf-mining species to characterize Wolbachia infections and the potential for this endosymbiont in biocontrol. Wolbachia infections were present in 12 species, including 10 species where the Wolbachia infection was at or near fixation. A comparison of Wolbachia relatedness based on the wsp/MLST gene set showed that unrelated leaf-mining species often shared similar Wolbachia, suggesting common horizontal transfer. We established a colony of Liriomyza brassicae and found adult Wolbachia density was stable; although Wolbachia density differed between the sexes, with females having a 20-fold higher density than males. Wolbachia density increased during L. brassicae development, with higher densities in pupae than larvae. We removed Wolbachia using tetracycline and performed reciprocal crosses between Wolbachia-infected and uninfected individuals. Cured females crossed with infected males failed to produce offspring, indicating that Wolbachia induced complete cytoplasmic incompatibility in L. brassicae. The results highlight the potential of Wolbachia to suppress Liriomyza pests based on approaches such as the incompatible insect technique, where infected males are released into populations lacking Wolbachia or with a different incompatible infection.

Molecular identification of hymenopteran parasitoids and their endosymbionts from agromyzids

“…1, and D. isaea were identical and belong to Wolbachia Supergroup A. This wsp sequence is identical to the wsp sequence of L. sativae (wLsatC) from Vietnam (Xu et al, 2021a). The Wolbachia wsp sequences of H. varicornis and Opius sp.…”

“…There is only a single base pair difference between the Wolbachia wsp sequences of H. varicornis from Fiji (this study where all 11 specimens were infected) and Japan (NCBI: AB231470.1/AB231471.1) (Tagami et al, 2006). Additionally, the Wolbachia wsp sequence of H. varicornis from Fiji is identical to the wsp sequence of L. bryoniae from Japan (wLbryB) (Tagami et al, 2006;Xu et al, 2021a). The Wolbachia wsp sequence of H. varicornis from Australia (this study) is three base pairs different to the wsp sequence of L. bryoniae (wLbryA) from the Netherlands (Xu et al, 2021a).…”

“…Three polyphagous Neotropical Liriomyza species (Liriomyza huidobrensis (Blanchard), Liriomyza sativae Blanchard, and Liriomyza trifolii (Burgess)) have become established around the world (Murphy and La Salle, 1999;Scheffer and Lewis, 2001Weintraub et al, 2017), largely through the movement of infested plant material along trade routes (Minkenberg, 1988). Despite strict surveillance and quarantine programs, these three species are now established in mainland Australia (Xu et al, 2021a). Liriomyza sativae was detected for the first time in the islands of the Torres Strait in 2008 (Blacket et al, 2015), and then on the Australian mainland at Seisia in 2015 (IPPC 2017).…”

Evaluation of the Community Structure Leafminer Fly, Liriomyza spp. (Diptera: Agromyzidae) and Their Parasitoids on Various Host Plant Families in Bali Province

“…As a result, the population of Liriomyza spp. will increase gradually in a geographical environment with more different host plants (Tran et al 2007b;Xu et al 2021). This study showed that the population abundance of Liriomyza spp.…”

Genome‐wide SNPs of vegetable leafminer, Liriomyza sativae: Insights into the recent Australian invasion

“…As species of Liriomyza have similar external morphology, taxonomic identification of L. sativae samples was confirmed by both morphological identification (by Dr. Mallik Malipatil, Agriculture Victoria, AgriBio, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Australia) and barcodes based on mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (CO1). For barcoding, legs of flies were taken from specimens for Chelex DNA extraction with protocols following previous work except in 70 μl of 5% Chelex 100 resin (Bio‐Rad Laboratories, Gladesville, NSW, Australia) (Coquilleau et al, 2021 ; Xu, Coquilleau et al, 2021 ; Xu, Ridland et al, 2021 ). The criteria for assigning CO1 haplotypes were based on BLAST similarity in NCBI (Johnson et al, 2008 ) with 100% similarity being used to link to existing haplotypes, and assignment to L. sativae clades defined by a similarity threshold of <2.5% (Scheffer & Lewis, 2005 ).…”