Infection Density Dynamics and Phylogeny of Associated with Coconut Hispine Beetle, (Gestro) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), by Multilocus Sequence Type (MLST) Genotyping.

The intracellular bacterium is widespread in arthropods. Recently, possibilities of novel -mediated hosts, their distribution, and natural rate have been anticipated, and the coconut leaf beetle (Gestro) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), which has garnered attention as a serious pest of palms, was subjected to this interrogation. By adopting surface protein () and multilocus sequence type (MLST) genotypic systems, we determined the infection density within host developmental stages, body parts, and tissues, and the results revealed that all the tested samples of were infected with the same strain (wLog), suggesting complete vertical transmission. The MLST profile elucidated two new alleles (-234 and coxA-266) that define a new sequence type (ST-483), which indicates the particular genotypic association of and . The quantitative real-time PCR analysis revealed a higher infection density in the eggs and adult stage, followed by the abdomen and reproductive tissues, respectively. However, no significant differences were observed in the infection density between sexes. Moreover, the and concatenated MLST alignment analysis of this study with other known Wolbachia-mediated arthropods revealed similar clustering with distinct monophyletic supergroup B. This is the first comprehensive report on the prevalence, infection dynamics, and phylogeny of the endosymbiont in , which demonstrated that is ubiquitous across all developmental stages and distributed in the entire body of . Understanding the infection dynamics would provide useful insight to build a framework for future investigations, understand its impacts on host physiology, and exploit it as a potential biocontrol agent.