Speaker
Description
The obligate intracellular endosymbiont Wolbachia (Alphaproteobacteria) is considered the most abundant symbiont with an estimated 40 % of Arthropod species infected. In most Arthropods, Wolbachia exert negative fitness effects on their host, causing for instance reproductive aberrations which facilitate the symbiont transmission. However, recent genomic analyses have revealed the presence of an operon responsible for biotin (vitamin B7) production to be present in Wolbachia from several insect hosts, including solitary bees. For some of these host species a nutrient-providing symbiont is advantageous given the monotonous diet of these hosts, and a nutritional mutualism has been demonstrated in rearing experiments. Solitary bees are a diverse and ecologically important group of insects, comprising 604 different species in Germany. Despite the fact that solitary bees appear to be a hotspot for biotin operon-containing Wolbachia, the role and evolution of biotin supplementation by Wolbachia in bees remains enigmatic. The aim of my project is to investigate the distribution, evolutionary history and functionality of this biotin operon in order to understand the evolution of a potential nutritional mutualism and to elucidate the relationship between Wolbachia and their solitary bee hosts. To this end, a comprehensive screen for Wolbachia symbionts carrying the biotin operon was performed. Our results show that the phenomenon is even more widespread than previously thought. A large set of Illumina WGS data from a variety of bee hosts will be screened for the presence of the Wolbachia biotin operon and extracted, including surrounding gene regions, for phylogenetic and comparative analysis. The role of Wolbachia mobile genetic elements, including phages, as potential vectors for the spread of the biotin operon will be investigated.
| Status Group | Doctoral Researcher |
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