A continental-scale survey of Wolbachia infections in blue butterflies reveals evidence of interspecific transfer and invasion dynamics.

ABSTRACT: Infections by maternally inherited bacterial endosymbionts, especially Wolbachia, are common in insects and other invertebrates but infection dynamics across species ranges are largely under studied. Specifically, we lack a broad understanding of the origin of Wolbachia infections in novel hosts, and the historical and geographical dynamics of infections that are critical for identifying the factors governing their spread. We used Genotype-by-Sequencing data from previous population genomics studies for range-wide surveys of Wolbachia presence and genetic diversity in North American butterflies of the genus Lycaeides. As few as one sequence read identified by assembly to a Wolbachia reference genome provided high accuracy in detecting infections in host butterflies as determined by confirm

SUBMITTER: Shastry V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9526071 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature