Wolbachia megadiversity: 99% of these microorganismic manipulators unknown

Matsapume Detcharoen; Wolfgang Arthofer; Birgit C Schlick-Steiner; Florian M Steiner

doi:10.1093/femsec/fiz151

Wolbachia megadiversity: 99% of these microorganismic manipulators unknown

FEMS Microbiol Ecol. 2019 Nov 1;95(11):fiz151. doi: 10.1093/femsec/fiz151.

Authors

Matsapume Detcharoen¹, Wolfgang Arthofer¹, Birgit C Schlick-Steiner¹, Florian M Steiner¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Ecology, Molecular Ecology Group, University of Innsbruck, Technikerstr. 25, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria.

PMID: 31566662
DOI: 10.1093/femsec/fiz151

Abstract

Wolbachia (Alphaproteobacteria) are the most widespread endosymbionts of arthropods, manipulating their hosts by various means to maximize the number of host individuals infected. Based on quantitative analyzes of the published literature from Web of Science® and of DNA sequences of arthropod-hosted Wolbachia from GenBank, we made plausible that less than 1% of the expected 100 000 strains of Wolbachia in arthropods is known. Our findings suggest that more and globally better coordinated efforts in screening arthropods are needed to explore the true Wolbachia diversity and to help us understand the ecology and evolution of these host-endosymbiont interactions.

Keywords: arthropods; diversity; endosymbiont.

MeSH terms

Animals
Arthropods / microbiology
Biodiversity*
Ecosystem
Symbiosis
Wolbachia* / genetics