While Wolbachia are commonly found among arthropods, intraspecific infection rates can vary substantially across the geographic populations. Here we report nearly 100% prevalence of Wolbachia in the global populations of the yellow crazy ant, Anoplolepis gracilipes. To understand coevolutionary history between Wolbachia and A. gracilipes, we identified single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in Wolbachia from the ant across 12 geographical regions and compared the phylogeny of SNP-based Wolbachia to patterns of the ant’s mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation. Our results revealed a strong concordance between phylogenies of Wolbachia and host mtDNA, providing immediate evidence of co-divergence. Among eight identified SNP loci separating the genetic clusters of Wolbachia, seven loci are located in potential protein-coding genes, three of which being non-synonymous SNPs that may influence gene functions. We found a Wolbachia hypothetical protein gene with signature of positive selection. These findings jointly allow us to characterize Wolbachia-ant coevolution and also raise a question about mechanism(s) underlying maintenance of high prevalence of Wolbachia during the colonization of this invasive ant.

中文翻译：

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正在进行中的沃尔巴克氏菌和广泛入侵的蚂蚁，无节食小夜蛾的进化

尽管在节肢动物中普遍发现沃尔巴克氏菌，但种内感染率在不同地理种群之间可能有很大差异。在这里，我们报道了黄色疯蚂蚁Anoplolepis gracilipes的全球种群中Wolbachia的患病率接近100％。要理解之间的协同进化历史沃尔巴克氏体和A.细梗，我们确定了单核苷酸多态性（SNP）的Wolbachia来自全国12个地域蚂蚁相比基于SNP的发展史沃尔巴克氏体蚂蚁的线粒体DNA（mtDNA）的变化模式。我们的研究结果表明，沃尔巴克氏菌系统发育之间的一致性很强并携带mtDNA，提供共同分歧的即时证据。在八个确定的分离Wolbachia遗传簇的SNP位点中，七个位点位于潜在的蛋白质编码基因中，其中三个是可能影响基因功能的非同义SNP。我们发现了具有正选择特征的Wolbachia假设蛋白基因。这些发现共同使我们能够表征沃尔巴克氏体-ant协同进化，并提高对内在机制的患病率较高的维修问题（S）的Wolbachia这个侵入蚂蚁的殖民化过程中。