title: Wolbachia in Parasitoids Attacking Native European and Introduced Eastern Cherry Fruit Flies in Europe.
abstract: The eastern cherry fruit fly, Rhagoletis cingulata Loew (Diptera: Tephritidae), is an economically important pest of cherries in North America. In 1983 it was first reported in Europe where it shares its ecological niche with the native European cherry fruit fly, Rhagoletis cerasi L. (Diptera: Tephritidae). Their coexistence in Europe led to the recent horizontal transmission of the Wolbachia strain wCer1 from R. cerasi to R. cingulata Horizontal Wolbachia transmission is mediated by either sharing of ecological niches or by interacting species such as parasitoids. Here we describe for the first time that two braconid wasps, Psyttalia rhagoleticola Sachtleben (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) and Utetes magnus Fischer (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), naturally parasitizing R. cerasi, use the invasive R. cingulata in Europe as a new host. In contrast, no parasitoids that parasitize R. cingulata in its native American range were detected in the introduced European range. Diagnostic Wolbachia PCR screening and sequence analyses demonstrated that all P. rhagoleticola individuals were infected with the newly described Wolbachia strain wRha while all U. magnus individuals were uninfected. wRha is different from wCer1 but had an Wolbachia surface protein (wsp) gene sequence that was identical to wCer2 of R. cerasi and wCin2 of R. cingulata. However, multi locus sequence typing revealed differences in all loci between wRha and the tephritid's strains. The horizontal transmission of wCer1 between the two tephritid species did not result in fixed heritable infections in the parasitoids. However, the parasitoids may have acted as a transient wCer1 vector.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Forest Entomology, Forest Pathology and Forest Protection, Department of Forest and Soil Sciences, Boku, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Hasenauerstrasse 38, 1190 Vienna, Austria (hannes.schuler@boku.ac.at; christian.stauffer@boku.ac.at) hannes.schuler@boku.ac.at.|Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Universitätsplatz 5, 39100 Bozen-Bolzano, Italy.|Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Galvin Life Sciences Building, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.
authors.forename: Hannes
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Schuler
authors.affiliation: Institute of Forest Entomology, Forest Pathology and Forest Protection, Department of Forest and Soil Sciences, Boku, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Hasenauerstrasse 38, 1190 Vienna, Austria (hannes.schuler@boku.ac.at; christian.stauffer@boku.ac.at).|Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia (p.kern@westernsydney.edu.au; m.riegler@westernsydney.edu.au).
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kern
authors.affiliation: Molecular Ecology Group, Institute of Ecology, University of Innsbruck, Technikerstrasse 25, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria (wolfgang.arthofer@uibk.ac.at).
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Arthofer
authors.affiliation: Julius Kühn-Institute, Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants, Institute for Plant Protection in Fruit Crops and Viticulture, Schwabenheimerstrasse 101, 69221 Dossenheim, Germany (heidrun.vogt@julius-kuehn.de).
authors.forename: Heidrun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Vogt
authors.affiliation: 2nd Zoological Department, Natural History Museum Vienna, Burgring 7, 1014 Vienna, Austria (maximilian.fischer@chello.at).
authors.forename: Maximilian
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fischer
authors.affiliation: Institute of Forest Entomology, Forest Pathology and Forest Protection, Department of Forest and Soil Sciences, Boku, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Hasenauerstrasse 38, 1190 Vienna, Austria (hannes.schuler@boku.ac.at; christian.stauffer@boku.ac.at).
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Stauffer
authors.affiliation: Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia (p.kern@westernsydney.edu.au; m.riegler@westernsydney.edu.au).
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Riegler
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001317:Austria; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D003576:Electron Transport Complex IV / Q000235:genetics; D005858:Germany; D019476:Insect Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D058865:Introduced Species; D058885:Multilocus Sequence Typing; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013045:Species Specificity; D033621:Tephritidae / Q000382:microbiology / Q000469:parasitology*; D014863:Wasps / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000502:physiology*; D020577:Wolbachia / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D019476:Insect Proteins; D003576:Electron Transport Complex IV
keywords: : invasive species; Rhagoletis; Wolbachia; horizontal transmission; parasitoid