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Transinfection of the olive fruit fly Bactrocera oleae with Wolbachia : towards a symbiont‐based population control strategy
Author(s) -
Apostolaki A.,
Livadaras I.,
Saridaki A.,
Chrysargyris A.,
Savakis C.,
Bourtzis K.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of applied entomology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.795
H-Index - 60
eISSN - 1439-0418
pISSN - 0931-2048
DOI - 10.1111/j.1439-0418.2011.01614.x
Subject(s) - biology , wolbachia , cytoplasmic incompatibility , tephritidae , bactrocera , host (biology) , population , botany , biological pest control , pest analysis , zoology , ecology , demography , sociology
The olive fruit fly Bactrocera oleae is responsible for worldwide economic damage. In this report, we describe the first B. oleae lines transinfected with the Wolbachia strain w Cer2, an endosymbiont of the cherry fruit fly Rhagoletis cerasi . Immunostaining followed by confocal microscopy, detects high numbers of Wolbachia in embryos as well as in ovarioles and sperm from individuals of both transinfected lines. w Cer2 was uniformly distributed in B. oleae egg chambers and the cortex of preblastoderm embryos. Wolbachia is known to manipulate host reproduction with several strategies, one of which is cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI), resulting in embryonic mortality in incompatible crosses. Wolbachia was found to induce complete CI in the novel host, suggesting that symbiont‐based approaches can be used as novel environmentally friendly tools for the control of natural olive fruit fly populations.