0000000000267290
AUTHOR
Jan Oettler
Cytoplasmic incompatibility between Old and New World populations of a tramp ant
Reproductive manipulation by endosymbiotic Wolbachia can cause unequal inheritance, allowing the manipulator to spread and potentially impacting evolutionary dynamics in infected hosts. Tramp and invasive species are excellent models to study the dynamics of host-Wolbachia associations because introduced populations often diverge in their microbiomes after colonizing new habitats, resulting in infection polymorphisms between native and introduced populations. Ants are the most abundant group of insects on earth, and numerous ant species are classified as highly invasive. However, little is known about the role of Wolbachia in these ecologically dominant insects. Here, we provide the first d…
A novel intracellular mutualistic bacterium in the invasive ant Cardiocondyla obscurior.
The evolution of eukaryotic organisms is often strongly influenced by microbial symbionts that confer novel traits to their hosts. Here we describe the intracellular Enterobacteriaceae symbiont of the invasive ant Cardiocondyla obscurior, 'Candidatus Westeberhardia cardiocondylae'. Upon metamorphosis, Westeberhardia is found in gut-associated bacteriomes that deteriorate following eclosion. Only queens maintain Westeberhardia in the ovarian nurse cells from where the symbionts are transmitted to late-stage oocytes during nurse cell depletion. Functional analyses of the streamlined genome of Westeberhardia (533 kb, 23.41% GC content) indicate that neither vitamins nor essential amino acids a…
Supplementary data for Ün et. al. 2020 "Cytoplasmic incompatibility between New and Old World populations of a tramp ant"
Supplementary annotation and phylogenetic data. See included README file for details.