Bouwma A M, Ahrens M E, DeHeer C J, DeWayne Shoemaker D
Department of Entomology, University Wisconsin-Madison, 53706, USA.
Insect Mol Biol. 2006 Feb;15(1):89-93. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2583.2006.00614.x.
Wolbachia are intracellular bacteria that induce phenotypic effects in many arthropod hosts to enhance their own transmission within host populations. Wolbachia commonly infect the Red Imported Fire Ant, Solenopsis invicta, in native South American populations. A previous study failed to detect Wolbachia in fire ants from the introduced range in the USA. We conducted an extensive study of individuals collected from 1157 nests from 10 widespread geographical populations in the USA. Wolbachia were detected in ants from two nearby populations in southern Mississippi, with different variants (wsp gene sequences) infecting ants from colonies of the multiple-queen (polygyne) vs. single-queen (monogyne) social forms. The parsimonious explanation for the presence of Wolbachia in introduced S. invicta is that there have been one or more recent introductions of Wolbachia-infected fire ants into the southern USA.
沃尔巴克氏体是一种胞内细菌，它能在许多节肢动物宿主中诱导表型效应，以增强自身在宿主种群中的传播。在南美洲原生种群中，沃尔巴克氏体通常感染红火蚁（入侵红火蚁）。此前一项研究未能在美国引入区域的火蚁中检测到沃尔巴克氏体。我们对从美国10个广泛分布的地理种群的1157个巢穴中采集的个体进行了广泛研究。在密西西比州南部两个相邻种群的蚂蚁中检测到了沃尔巴克氏体，不同变体（wsp基因序列）感染了多蚁后（多雌型）与单蚁后（单雌型）社会形态蚁群中的蚂蚁。对于引入的入侵红火蚁中存在沃尔巴克氏体的最合理的解释是，最近有一批或多批感染了沃尔巴克氏体的火蚁被引入了美国南部。
