Abstract
One of the biggest challenges for pathogens invading hosts is microbial symbionts but the role of pathogens in symbionts in nature is unknown. By tracking the dynamics of the entomopathogenic fungal Cordyceps javanica and symbionts in natural populations of the whitefly Bemisia tabaci from 2016 to 2021 across China, we reveal that Rickettsia, a newly invaded symbiont, is positively correlated with the pathogen in both frequency and density. We confirm that applying pathogen pressure can selectively drive Rickettsia to sudden fixation in whiteflies both in the laboratory and in the field. Furthermore, the driving force is elucidated by the Rickettsia-conferred suppression of pathogen infection quantity, proliferation and sporulation, acting as a potential barrier of onward transmission of the pathogen. These results show that pathogens are an important driving force for rapid shifts in host symbionts in the natural niche.
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Data availability
Data are available through Zenodo at the following link: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8011960. Source data are provided with this paper.
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Acknowledgements
We thank X.-L. Ni (Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences), Z.-W. Song (Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences), M.-Y. Ma (Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences), Z.-Y. Ge (Agricultural Committee of Jiulongpo District, Chongqing), Y.-Y. Hou (Jilin Agricultural University), Y. Li (Plant Protection and Inspection Station of Changzhi, Shanxi Province) and X. Liu (Zibo Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shandong Province) for the help with the collection of whitefly B. tabaci populations. We are very grateful for the funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 32172412 for D.Z. and 32172410 for H.G.).
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D.Z. and H.G. conceived of this work. D.Z., Z.Z., H.N. and H.G. developed the methodology. D.Z., Z.Z., H.N. and H.G. carried out the investigations. D.Z., Z.Z., H.N. and H.G. prepared the visualization. D.Z. and H.G. acquired the funding. H.G. supervised the work. D.Z. wrote the original draft while H.G. was involved in reviewing and editing the paper.
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Extended data
Extended Data Fig. 1 The rapid spread of the newly invaded symbiont Rickettsia in natural whitefly populations is driven by the increasing pressure of the pathogen Cordyceps javanica from 2016 to 2020.
The driving force is elucidated by the Rickettsia-conferred suppression of pathogen infection quantity, proliferation and sporulation acting as a potential barrier of onward transmission of the pathogen.
Extended Data Fig. 2 Molecular phylogenetic placement of Rickettsia from whitefly Bemesia tabaci MED collected in 2016 and 2020 across China based on 16 S rRNA, gltA and groEL gene sequences (2328 bp).
Bootstrap values for the Bayesian posterior probabilities (>0.50) are shown at the nodes. The names of hosts are shown in brackets. The sequence accession numbers are shown in Supplementary Table 2. Sequences obtained in this study are labelled by arrows.
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Zhao, D., Zhang, Z., Niu, H. et al. Pathogens are an important driving force for the rapid spread of symbionts in an insect host. Nat Ecol Evol 7, 1667–1681 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02160-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02160-3