Publication Date:
2011-04-09
Description:
Maternally inherited bacterial symbionts of arthropods are common, yet symbiont invasions of host populations have rarely been observed. Here, we show that Rickettsia sp. nr. bellii swept into a population of an invasive agricultural pest, the sweet potato whitefly, Bemisia tabaci, in just 6 years. Compared with uninfected whiteflies, Rickettsia-infected whiteflies produced more offspring, had higher survival to adulthood, developed faster, and produced a higher proportion of daughters. The symbiont thus functions as both mutualist and reproductive manipulator. The observed increased performance and sex-ratio bias of infected whiteflies are sufficient to explain the spread of Rickettsia across the southwestern United States. Symbiont invasions such as this represent a sudden evolutionary shift for the host, with potentially large impacts on its ecology and invasiveness.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Himler, Anna G -- Adachi-Hagimori, Tetsuya -- Bergen, Jacqueline E -- Kozuch, Amaranta -- Kelly, Suzanne E -- Tabashnik, Bruce E -- Chiel, Elad -- Duckworth, Victoria E -- Dennehy, Timothy J -- Zchori-Fein, Einat -- Hunter, Martha S -- 1K 12 GM00708/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2011 Apr 8;332(6026):254-6. doi: 10.1126/science.1199410.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Center for Insect Science, The University of Arizona, Post Office Box 210106, Tucson, AZ 85721-0106, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21474763" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
*Biological Evolution
;
Female
;
*Genetic Fitness
;
Hemiptera/genetics/*microbiology/*physiology
;
Male
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
Reproduction
;
Rickettsia/genetics/*physiology
;
Sex Ratio
;
Southwestern United States
;
*Symbiosis
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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