Laboratory of Genetics, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, Netherlands.
Laboratory of Entomology, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, Netherlands.
Environ Microbiol. 2024 Mar;26(3):e16599. doi: 10.1111/1462-2920.16599.
The occurrence of facultative endosymbionts has been studied in many commercially important crop pest aphids, but their occurrence and effects in non-commercial aphid species in natural populations have received less attention. We screened 437 aphid samples belonging to 106 aphid species for the eight most common facultative aphid endosymbionts. We found one or more facultative endosymbionts in 53% (56 of 106) of the species investigated. This likely underestimates the situation in the field because facultative endosymbionts are often present in only some colonies of an aphid species. Oligophagous aphid species carried facultative endosymbionts significantly more often than monophagous species. We did not find a significant correlation between ant tending and facultative endosymbiont presence. In conclusion, we found that facultative endosymbionts are common among aphid populations. This study is, to our knowledge, the first of its kind in the Netherlands and provides a basis for future research in this field. For instance, it is still unknown in what way many of these endosymbionts affect their hosts, which is important for determining the importance of facultative endosymbionts to community dynamics.
我们从属于 106 种蚜虫的 437 个蚜虫样本中筛选了 8 种最常见的兼性蚜虫内共生体，发现调查的 106 种物种中有 53%（56 种）携带一种或多种兼性内共生体。由于兼性内共生体通常只存在于蚜虫种群的某些群体中，因此这可能低估了野外的情况。寡食性蚜虫物种携带兼性内共生体的频率明显高于单食性物种。我们没有发现蚂蚁养殖与兼性内共生体存在之间存在显著相关性。总之，我们发现兼性内共生体在蚜虫种群中很常见。据我们所知，这是荷兰首例此类研究，为该领域的未来研究提供了基础。例如，目前尚不清楚许多这些内共生体以何种方式影响它们的宿主，这对于确定兼性内共生体对群落动态的重要性很重要。
