Complex effects of environment and Wolbachia infections on the life history of Drosophila melanogaster hosts. (9th May 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Strunov, Anton; Lerch, Sina; Blanckenhorn, Wolf U.; Miller, Wolfgang J.; Kapun, Martin
• Is Part Of: Journal of evolutionary biology. Volume 35:Number 6(2022)
• Page Start: 788
• Page End: 802
• Publication Date: 2022-05-09
• Subjects: Drosophila -- fitness -- G × E interactions -- temperature -- Wolbachia; Evolution (Biology) -- Periodicals; Biology -- Periodicals; 576.8
• DOI: 10.1111/jeb.14016
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1010-061X

Abstract

Abstract: Wolbachia bacteria are common endosymbionts of many arthropods found in gonads and various somatic tissues. They manipulate host reproduction to enhance their transmission and confer complex effects on fitness‐related traits. Some of these effects can serve to increase the survival and transmission efficiency of Wolbachia in the host population. The Wolbachia – Drosophila melanogaster system represents a powerful model to study the evolutionary dynamics of host–microbe interactions and infections. Over the past decades, there has been a replacement of the ancestral w MelCS Wolbachia variant by the more recent w Mel variant in worldwide D . melanogaster populations, but the reasons remain unknown. To investigate how environmental change and genetic variation of the symbiont affect host developmental and adult life‐history traits, we compared effects of both Wolbachia variants and uninfected controls in wild‐caught D . melanogaster strains at three developmental temperatures. While Wolbachia did not influence any developmental life‐history traits, we found that both lifespan and fecundity of host females were increased without apparent fitness trade‐offs. Interestingly, w MelCS‐infected flies were more fecund than uninfected and w Mel‐infected flies. By contrast, males infected with w Mel died sooner, indicating sex‐specific effects of infection that are specific to the Wolbachia variant. Our study uncovered complex temperature‐specific effects of Wolbachia infections, which suggests that symbiont–host interactions in nature are strongly dependent on the genotypes of both partners and the thermal environment. Abstract : The reasons for the recent global replacement of the Wolbachia wMelCS variant by wMel in Drosophila populations remain unknown. In our study, we investigated the fitness of wild‐caught D. melanogaster strains from Portugal at three developmental temperatures in presence and absence of these two Wolbachia types. The endosymbionts had no influence on life history traits that are determined during the development, such as development time, body size and number of ovarioles. In contrast, adult fitness components like oogenesis, fecundity and longevity were affected by temperature and Wolbachia type.