ArticleBMC evolutionary biology2012
Male-killing Wolbachia and mitochondrial selective sweep in a migratory African insect.
Article in BMC evolutionary biology, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 19 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 52 citations in OpenAlex.
- Complete transition from chromosomal to cytoplasmic sex determination during prolonged Wolbachia symbiosis.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Host genetics and environment shape the gut microbiome ofFrontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Insect-microbe interactions and their influence on organisms and ecosystems.Ecology and evolution · 2024Review
- The Diversity ofInsects · 2024Article
- Morphological changes in female reproductive organs in the African monarch butterfly, host to a male-killingPeerJ · 2023Article
- The distribution of covert microbial natural enemies of a globally invasive crop pest, fall armyworm, in Africa: Enemy release and spillover events.The Journal of animal ecology · 2022Article
- Unparalleled mitochondrial heteroplasmy andCurrent research in insect science · 2022Article
- Wolbachia-driven selective sweep in a range expanding insect species.BMC ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Wolbachia affects mitochondrial population structure in two systems of closely related Palaearctic blue butterflies.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Coexistence of Two Male-Killers and Their Impact on the Development of Oriental Tea Tortrix Homona magnanima.Microbial ecology · 2021Article
- Article
- Novel partiti-like viruses are conditional mutualistic symbionts in their normal lepidopteran host, African armyworm, but parasitic in a novel host, Fall armyworm.PLoS pathogens · 2020Article
- The evolution of caste-biasing symbionts in the social hymenoptera.Insectes sociaux · 2018Review
- Uncovering the hidden players in Lepidoptera biology: the heritable microbial endosymbionts.PeerJ · 2018Article
- Local coexistence and genetic isolation of three pollinator species on the same fig tree species.Heredity · 2017Article
- Speciation in Cloudless Sulphurs Gleaned from Complete Genomes.Genome biology and evolution · 2016Article
- Molecular markers for analyses of intraspecific genetic diversity in the Asian Tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus.Parasites & vectors · 2015Article
- Wolbachia infections and mitochondrial diversity of two chestnut feeding Cydia species.PloS one · 2014Article
- Lack of population genetic structure and host specificity in the bat fly, Cyclopodia horsfieldi, across species of Pteropus bats in Southeast Asia.Parasites & vectors · 2013Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundNumerous recent studies have shown that resident symbiotic microorganisms of insects play a fundamental role in host ecology and evolution. The lepidopteran pest, African armyworm (Spodoptera exempta), is a highly migratory and destructive species found throughout sub-Saharan Africa, that can experience eruptive outbreaks within the space of a single generation, making predicting population dynamics and pest control forecasting extremely difficult. Three strains of Wolbachia have recently been identified infecting this species in populations sampled from Tanzania. In this study, we examined the interaction between Wolbachia pipiensis infections and the co-inherited marker, mtDNA, within populations of armyworm, as a means to investigate the population biology and evolutionary history of Wolbachia and its host.
resultsA Wolbachia-infected isofemale line was established in the laboratory. Phenotypic studies confirmed the strain wExe1 as a male-killer. Partial sequencing of the mitochondrial COI gene from 164 individual field-collected armyworm of known infection status revealed 17 different haplotypes. There was a strong association between Wolbachia infection status and mtDNA haplotype, with a single dominant haplotype, haplo1 (90.2% prevalence), harbouring the endosymbiont. All three Wolbachia strains were associated with this haplotype. This indicates that Wolbachia may be driving a selective sweep on armyworm haplotype diversity. Despite very strong biological and molecular evidence that the samples represent a single species (including from nuclear 28S gene markers), the 17 haplotypes did not fall into a monophyletic clade within the Spodoptera genus; with six haplotypes (2 each from 3 geographically separate populations) differing by >11% in their nucleotide sequence to the other eleven.
conclusionsThis study suggests that three strains of Wolbachia may be driving a selective sweep on armyworm haplotype diversity, and that based on COI sequence data, S. exempta is not a monophyletic group within the Spodoptera genus. This has clear implications for the use of mtDNA as neutral genetic markers in insects, and also demonstrates the impact of Wolbachia infections on host evolutionary genetics.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.