Prevalence of Wolbachia in 10 Tenebrionidae stored product insects and infection density dynamics in confused flour beetle Tribolium confusum (Jaquelin Du Val) (Coleoptera: Tenebriondae)
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Entomology, Evolutionary Studies, Microbiology, Molecular Biology
- Keywords
- Wolbachia, Tenebrionidae, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Stored product insects, Infection density, Tetracycline
- Copyright
- © 2018 Lu et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Prevalence of Wolbachia in 10 Tenebrionidae stored product insects and infection density dynamics in confused flour beetle Tribolium confusum (Jaquelin Du Val) (Coleoptera: Tenebriondae) PeerJ Preprints 6:e27059v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27059v1
Abstract
Background: Increasingly interests in the potential use of insect symbionts Wolbachia to control populations of pest species were focused on many vector pest species and agricultural insects. However, few pieces of researches were reported in stored product insects.
Methods: We surveyed the prevalence of Wolbachia using a PCR detection method in 10 Tenebrionidae stored product insects. Subsequently, Wolbachia infection density and spatiotemporal dynamics in Tribolium confusum were investigated in detail by TaqMan probe real-time quantitative PCR, and Wolbachia elimination patterns by antibiotic treatment and host reproductive fitness parameters were compared.
Results: Our results identified that T. confusum were the only infected species in the survey. Wolbachia infection density consistently increased with the development of T.confusum and plateaued at 3.7×107 wsp copies per individual insect at the young adult stage. Wolbachia densities in females showed significant differences to the male at the pupae stage and varied in different tissues and organs.Aposymbiotic female beetles by feeding with Tetracycline diet were completely incapable to produce mature progenies when crossing with Wolbachia infected males. Embryogenesis and egg hatch rate were specifically inhibited after Wolbachia elimination, while other traits including egg produced numbers, pupation rate and sex ratio remained unaffected after antibiotic treatment.
Discussion: All the results indicated that Wolbachia infection was regarded as a mutualism but not obligate symbiont and benefited the host confused flour beetle.
Author Comment
This is a preprint submission to PeerJ Preprints.
Supplemental Information
Table 1. Wolbachia infectionstatus in Tenebrionidae stored product pests in China
Table2. CI expression and reproduction parameters of antibiotic treated( w- ) and untreated( w+ ) Tribolium confusum
♂, male; ♀, female; w+, Wolbachia-infected beetle; w-, Wolbachia-uninfected beetle (Tetracycline treatment); Eggs number is laid by one pair beetles in 30 days. Mean ± SD followed by different letters in the same column indicate significant difference(Turkey HSD test, P<0.05).
Fig.1 Dynamicsof Wolbachia infection during thedevelopment of Tribolium confusum
Reported values are mean ± SD for wsp copies per mg insect mass (fresh weight). The error bars indicate standard deviation (SD) (n=6). Adults were females.
Fig.2 Comparison of Wolbachia infection density in Tribolium confusum male and female pupae and adults
(* indicates significant difference between two groups, NS indicates no significant difference, Independent samples t-test, P<0.05).
Fig.3Relative amounts of Wolbachia population density in head,thorax and abdomen of T. confusum.
Data expressed in terms of number of wsp copies per individual body part.
Fig.4 Comparisonof the population density of Wolbachia in different tissues of T.confusum
Data expressed in terms of number of wsp copies per ng template DNA. The error bars indicate standard deviation (SD) (n=10) . The different letters identify a significant difference (Turkey HSD test, P<0.05)
Fig.5 Comparison of the population density of Wolbachia in T. confusum by different concentration of tetracycline treatment for 2, 3 and 4 weeks
The number expressed in terms of number of wsp copies per individual ( a: larvae CK=1.47E+07 , b: pupae CK: ♀ 2.22E+07 , ♂ 1.97E+07 , c: adults CK= 2.37E+07). The error bars indicate standard deviation (SD). The different letter indicates a significant difference (Turkey HSD test, P<0.05) .