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.

中文翻译：

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蚜虫种群经常感染兼性内共生体

兼性内共生体的发生在许多具有重要商业价值的作物害虫蚜虫中进行了研究，但其在自然种群中的非商业蚜虫物种中的发生和影响却很少受到关注。我们筛选了属于 106 种蚜虫的 437 份蚜虫样本中的 8 种最常见的兼性蚜虫内共生体。我们在 53% 的调查物种（106 个物种中的 56 个）中发现了一种或多种兼性内共生体。这可能低估了田间的情况，因为兼性内共生体通常仅存在于蚜虫物种的某些群体中。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。我们没有发现蚂蚁的照顾和兼性内共生体的存在之间存在显着相关性。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，这项研究在荷兰尚属首次，并为该领域的未来研究奠定了基础。例如，目前尚不清楚许多内共生体以何种方式影响其宿主，这对于确定兼性内共生体对群落动态的重要性非常重要。