Many insect species harbor facultative microbial symbionts that affect their biology in diverse ways. Here, we studied the effects, interactions, and localization of two bacterial symbionts—Wolbachia and Rickettsia—in the parasitoid Spalangia endius. We crossed between four S. endius colonies—Wolbachia only (W), Rickettsia only (R), both (WR), and none (aposymbiotic, APS) (16 possible crosses) and found that Wolbachia induces incomplete cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI), both when the males are W or WR. Rickettsia did not cause reproductive manipulations and did not rescue the Wolbachia-induced CI. However, when R females were crossed with W or WR males, significantly less offspring were produced compared with that of control crosses. In non-CI crosses, the presence of Wolbachia in males caused a significant reduction in offspring numbers. Females’ developmental time was significantly prolonged in the R colony, with adults starting to emerge one day later than the other colonies. Other fitness parameters did not differ significantly between the colonies. Using fluorescence in situ hybridization microscopy in females, we found that Wolbachia is localized alongside Rickettsia inside oocytes, follicle cells, and nurse cells in the ovaries. However, Rickettsia is distributed also in muscle cells all over the body, in ganglia, and even in the brain.

许多昆虫物种带有兼性微生物共生体，它们以多种方式影响其生物学。在这里，我们研究的影响，相互作用，以及两种细菌symbionts-的本地化沃尔巴克氏体和立克次体-在寄生Spalangia恩迪斯。我们在四个内生链球菌菌落之间进行了杂交-仅Wolbachia（W），仅立克次体（R），两者（WR）和无（单亲共生，APS）（16个可能的杂交），发现Wolbachia诱导了不完全的细胞质不相容性（CI），无论是雄性是W还是WR。立克次体没有引起生殖操纵，也没有拯救沃尔巴克氏体诱导的CI。但是，当R雌性与W或WR雄性杂交时，与对照杂交相比，产生的后代明显减少。在非CI杂交中，雄性Wolbachia的存在导致后代数量的显着减少。在R菌落中，雌性的发育时间显着延长，成虫比其他菌落晚一天出现。菌落之间的其他适应性参数没有显着差异。使用荧光原位杂交技术在雌性中，我们发现沃尔巴克氏菌与立克次体一起定位在卵巢的卵母细胞，卵泡细胞和护士细胞中。然而，立克次体 它也分布在全身，神经节甚至大脑的肌肉细胞中。