Publication Date:
2010-07-10
Description:
Recent studies have shown that some plants and animals harbor microbial symbionts that protect them against natural enemies. Here we demonstrate that a maternally transmitted bacterium, Spiroplasma, protects Drosophila neotestacea against the sterilizing effects of a parasitic nematode, both in the laboratory and the field. This nematode parasitizes D. neotestacea at high frequencies in natural populations, and, until recently, almost all infections resulted in complete sterility. Several lines of evidence suggest that Spiroplasma is spreading in North American populations of D. neotestacea and that a major adaptive change to a symbiont-based mode of defense is under way. These findings demonstrate the profound and potentially rapid effects of defensive symbionts, which are increasingly recognized as major players in the ecology of species interactions.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Jaenike, John -- Unckless, Robert -- Cockburn, Sarah N -- Boelio, Lisa M -- Perlman, Steve J -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2010 Jul 9;329(5988):212-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1188235.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Biology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA. john.jaenike@rochester.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20616278" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
*Adaptation, Physiological
;
Animals
;
DNA, Mitochondrial/genetics
;
Drosophila/genetics/microbiology/parasitology/*physiology
;
Female
;
Fertility
;
Haplotypes
;
Host-Parasite Interactions
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
Polymerase Chain Reaction
;
Spiroplasma/isolation & purification/*physiology
;
*Symbiosis
;
Tylenchida/anatomy & histology/*physiology
;
Wolbachia/isolation & purification/physiology
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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