PhD Candidate American Museum of Natural History New York, New York
Wolbachia are bacteria that infect a wide range of insects and other arthropod species. As intracellular parasites, Wolbachia are present in several systems—as mutualists in filarial nematodes, as reproductive parasites in many insects, and as undetermined players in other arthropod systems. In the twisted-wing parasite order, Strepsiptera, Wolbachia has been confirmed in two host-parasite associations: in Dipterophagus daci and its tephritid fruit fly hosts, and in Elenchus japonicus and its planthopper hosts. Here we present the first record of Wolbachia detection in a Strepsiptera-Hymenoptera system via genomics. We confirm that Xenos peckii (Strepsiptera: Xenidae) and its paper wasp host Polistes fuscatus share the same strain of Wolbachia through phylogenetics and haplotype mapping, prompting further questions about the role of Wolbachia in this complex host-parasite system.
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