Role in Sexual Differentiation of Hosts
Within arthropods, Wolbachia is notable for significantly altering the reproductive capabilities of its hosts. These bacteria can infect many different types of organs, but are most notable for the infections of the testes and ovaries of their hosts.
Wolbachia species are known to cause four different phenotypes:
- Male killing: males are killed during larval development, which increase the rate of born females.
- Feminization: infected males develop as females or infertile pseudo-females.
- Parthenogenesis: reproduction of infected females without males. Some scientists have suggested that parthenogenesis may always be attributable to the effects of Wolbachia. An example of a parthenogenic species is the Trichogramma wasp, which has evolved to procreate without males with the help of Wolbachia. Males are rare in this tiny species of insect, possibly because many have been killed by that very same strain of Wolbachia.
- Cytoplasmic incompatibility: the inability of Wolbachia-infected males to successfully reproduce with uninfected females or females infected with another Wolbachia strain.
Several species are so dependent on Wolbachia, they are unable to reproduce effectively without the bacteria in their bodies.
Wolbachia species are present in mature eggs, but not mature sperm. Only infected females pass the infection on to their offspring. One study on infected woodlice showed the broods of infected organisms had a higher proportion of females than their uninfected counterparts. Wolbachia, especially Wolbachia-caused cytoplasmic incompatibility, may be important in promoting speciation. Wolbachia strains that distort the sex ratio may alter their host's pattern of sexual selection in nature, and also engender strong selection to prevent their action, leading to some of the fastest examples of natural selection in natural populations.
Read more about this topic: Wolbachia
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