Intercontinental diversity of Caballeronia gut symbionts in the conifer pest bug Leptoglossus occidentalis
Résumé
Many stinkbugs in the superfamily Coreoidea (Hemiptera: Heteroptera) develop crypts in the posterior midgut, harboring
Caballeronia (Burkholderia) symbionts. These symbionts form a monophyletic group in Burkholderia sensu lato, called the
“stinkbug-associated beneficial and environmental (SBE)” group, recently reclassified as the new genus Caballeronia. SBE
symbionts are separated into the subclades SBE-α and SBE-β. Previous studies suggested a regional effect on the symbiont
infection pattern; Japanese and American bug species are more likely to be associated with SBE-α, while European bug
species are almost exclusively associated with SBE-β. However, since only a few insect species have been investigated, it
remains unclear whether region-specific infection is general. We herein investigated Caballeronia gut symbionts in diverse
Japanese, European, and North American populations of a cosmopolitan species, the Western conifer seed bug Leptoglossus
occidentalis (Coreoidea: Coreidae). A molecular phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene demonstrated that SBE-β
was the most dominant in all populations. Notably, SBE-α was rarely detected in any region, while a third clade, the
“Coreoidea clade” occupied one fourth of the tested populations. Although aposymbiotic bugs showed high mortality, SBEα- and SBE-β-inoculated insects both showed high survival rates; however, a competition assay demonstrated that SBE-β
outcompeted SBE-α in the midgut crypts of L. occidentalis. These results strongly suggest that symbiont specificity in
the Leptoglossus-Caballeronia symbiotic association is influenced by the host rather than geography, while the geographic
distribution of symbionts may be more important in other bugs.
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