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New Insight into Wolbachia Epidemiology: Its Varying Incidence During the Host Life Cycle Can Alter Bacteria Spread

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Abstract

Wolbachia is an obligate endosymbiont whose spread depends mainly on its capacity to alter host reproduction by, for instance, cytoplasmic incompatibility. Several mathematical models have been developed to explain the dynamics of bacterial spread, because of its applied interest. However, some aspects of the host’s and bacterium’s biology have not been considered in modelling: for instance, changes in Wolbachia proportions during the host’s life cycle have been observed in several species, including Drosophila sp., Nasonia sp. and Aedes sp. (Diptera), but also in the grasshopper Chorthippus parallelus (Orthoptera), the species studied in this article. These changes influence the proportion of incompatible crosses and, consequently, infection prevalence in subsequent generations. In this paper, we are interested in ascertaining whether these changes in the infection proportions during the host’s life cycle can influence the dynamics of the spread of these bacteria. We have examined its consequences using a mathematical model to predict the evolution of Wolbachia infection frequencies. The simulations were validated by experimental field data from C. parallelus. The main outcome is that those changes above mentioned might affect long-term infection spread, with possible consequences for the current distribution of Wolbachia and the way it affects its host’s reproduction.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr Phil Mason (Glasgow University) for his useful advice and our anonymous referees for their helpful comments. We also thank Prof Juan Orellana for providing us with the mill for the DNA extraction. We are grateful to the Comunidad de Madrid and the Gobierno de Aragón for permission to collect grasshoppers. This work has been supported by Spanish Grants CGL2009-08380/BOS and CGL2012-35007 and the collaboration of Chromacell S.L. Rafael Granero-Belinchón is supported by Grants MTM2011-26696 from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN), Spain.

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Author notes

  1. P. Martínez-Rodríguez

    Present address: BPI - Biologie des Populations Introduites, Institut Sophia Agrobiotech (INRA PACA), 400 route des Chappes, BP 167, 06903, Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Biología (Genética), Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, C/ Darwin 2, 28049, Madrid, Spain

    P. Martínez-Rodríguez, F. Arroyo-Yebras & J. L. Bella

  2. Department of Mathematics, University of California Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    R. Granero-Belinchón

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  1. P. Martínez-Rodríguez
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Correspondence to P. Martínez-Rodríguez.

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Martínez-Rodríguez, P., Granero-Belinchón, R., Arroyo-Yebras, F. et al. New Insight into Wolbachia Epidemiology: Its Varying Incidence During the Host Life Cycle Can Alter Bacteria Spread. Bull Math Biol 76, 2646–2663 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11538-014-0029-5

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