Fitness costs of Wolbachia shift in locally-adapted Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.

ABSTRACT: Aedes aegypti mosquito eggs can remain quiescent for many months before hatching, allowing populations to persist through unfavourable conditions. A. aegypti infected with the Wolbachia strain wMel have been released in tropical and subtropical regions for dengue control. wMel reduces the viability of quiescent eggs, but this physiological cost might be expected to evolve in natural mosquito populations that frequently experience stressful conditions. We found that the cost of wMel infection differed consistently between mosquitoes collected from different locations and became weaker across laboratory generations, suggesting environment-specific adaptation of mosquitoes to the wMel infection. Reciprocal crossing experiments show that differences in the cost of wMel to quiescent egg viabili

SUBMITTER: Ross PA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10947380 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature