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Background  Maternally inherited  Wolbachia  bacteria infect many insect species. They can also be transferred horizontally into uninfected host lineages. A  Wolbachia  spillover from an infected source population must occur prior to the establishment of heritable infections, but this spillover may be transient. In a previous study of tephritid fruit fly species of tropical Australia we detected a high incidence of identical  Wolbachia  strains in several species as well as  Wolbachia  pseudogenes. Here, we have investigated this further by analysing field specimens of 24 species collected along a 3,000 km climate gradient of eastern Australia.    Results   Wolbachia  sequences were detected in individuals of nine of the 24 (37 %) species. Seven (29 %) species displayed four distinct  Wolbachia  strains based on characterisation of full multi locus sequencing (MLST) profiles; the strains occurred as single and double infections in a small number of individuals (2–17 %). For the two remaining species all individuals had incomplete MLST profiles and  Wolbachia  pseudogenes that may be indicative of lateral gene transfer into host genomes. The detection of  Wolbachia  was restricted to northern Australia, including in five species that only occur in the tropics. Within the more widely distributed  Bactrocera tryoni  and  Bactrocera neohumeralis ,  Wolbachia  also only occurred in the north, and was not linked to any particular mitochondrial haplotypes.    Conclusions  The presence of  Wolbachia  pseudogenes at high prevalence in two species in absence of complete MLST profiles may represent footprints of historic infections that have been lost. The detection of identical low prevalence strains in a small number of individuals of seven species may question their role as reproductive manipulator and their vertical inheritance. Instead, the findings may be indicative of transient infections that result from spillover events from a yet unknown source. These spillover events appear to be restricted to northern Australia, without proliferation in host lineages further south. Our study highlights that tropical fruit fly communities contain  Wolbachia  pseudogenes and may be exposed to frequent horizontal  Wolbachia  transfer. It also emphasises that global estimates of  Wolbachia  frequencies may need to consider lateral gene transfer and  Wolbachia  spillover that may be regionally restricted, transient and not inherited.    Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12862-015-0474-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

bmc evolutionary biology

Wolbachia pseudogenes and low prevalence infections in tropical but not temperate Australian tephritid fruit flies: manifestations of lateral gene transfer and endosymbiont spillover?