Heritable endosymbionts have been observed in arthropod and nematode hosts. The most-known among them is Wolbachia. Although the bacterium was previously identified in oribatid mites (Acari: Oribatida), it was not assigned to any phylogenetic group. Endosymbionts have a profound influence on their hosts, playing various functions that affect invertebrate's biology such as changing the way of reproduction. Oribatida provide the very unique examples of groups in which even whole families appear to be thelytokous, so we considered that it is worth to investigate the occurrence of endosymbiotic microorganisms in oribatid mites, especially that the knowledge on the symbionts occurrence in this invertebrate group is negligible. We report for the first time Wolbachia in oribatid mite Gustavia microcephala. The sequences of 16S rDNA, gltA, and ftsZ genes of the endosymbiont from the mite showed the highest similarity to Wolbachia found in Collembola. Phylogenetic analysis based on single gene and concatenated alignments of three genes revealed that the bacteria from G. microcephala and Collembola were related and clustered together with supergroup E. Relatively close relationship of Wolbachia from oribatid and collembolan hosts might mean at the evolutionary scale that horizontal transfer of bacteria between these two groups of invertebrates may take place.
Keywords: 16S rDNA; Heritable endosymbionts; Housekeeping genes; Oribatida; Wolbachia.
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