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Japanese barberry seed predation by Rhagoletis meigenii fruit flies harboring Wolbachia endosymbionts

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Abstract

The phytophagous fruit fly Rhagoletis meigenii harbors the bacterium Wolbachia pipientis and, together with Japanese barberry, form a tri-partite symbiosis. R. meigenii is a seed predator of invasive Japanese barberry plants and is dependent on this insect-plant interaction for reproductive success. The endosymbiotic bacterium W. pipientis is a reproductive parasite known to alter the sex ratios of offspring and the fitness of infected host insects. We investigated Japanese barberry fruit for the degree of infestation by R. meigenii and characterized the Wolbachia strain infecting R. meigenii. Densities of R. meigenii in four naturalized stands of Japanese barberry revealed low numbers of fruit flies with high variability in the population densities observed among individual plants. Overall, R. meigenii infested roughly 10–20 % of the Japanese barberry fruits analyzed; fruit with two seeds (vs. one seed) were the most frequently infested. Approximately, 90 % of the R. meigenii tested positive for Wolbachia infection via PCR amplification of the Wolbachia surface protein (wsp) gene. No bacterial strain diversity was observed when comparing multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) profiles within or among five R. meigenii populations in Maine, although the MLST profile obtained from R. meigenii differed from three co-occurring Rhagoletis. The Wolbachia endosymbiont of R. meigenii is a member of the Wolbachia supergroup A and the ST-13 cluster complex.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by U.S. Department of Agriculture CSREES grants no. 2009-38914-19786 and 2010-38914-20996 to M.E.R., and both a 2010 LL Bean Scientific Research Fellowship in Acadia National Park by the Friends of Acadia National Park (http://www.friendsofacadia.org/) and a 2010 Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station Integrated Pest Management Graduate Student Grant to V.C.C. This is Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station Publication Number 3305, Hatch Project no. ME08362-07H.

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  1. Mary E. Rumpho

    Present address: Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Connecticut, 91 North Eagleville Road, Storrs, CT, 06269, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular and Biomedical Sciences, University of Maine, 5735 Hitchner Hall, Orono, ME, 04469, USA

    Vanessa C. Coats & Mary E. Rumpho

  2. School of Biology and Ecology, University of Maine, 5751 Murray Hall, Orono, ME, 04461, USA

    Philip A. Stack

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Coats, V.C., Stack, P.A. & Rumpho, M.E. Japanese barberry seed predation by Rhagoletis meigenii fruit flies harboring Wolbachia endosymbionts. Symbiosis 59, 145–156 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13199-013-0223-5

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