Evolutionary consequences of ultraselfish cytobiotic bacteria on mitochondrial dna

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Project objective

The project aims to produce a detailed analysis of the evolutionary consequences of 'ultraselfish' cytobiotic bacteria on mitochondrial DNA, using the two-spot ladybird, Adalia bipunctata, which bears different such bacteria in different geographic populations. Investigation will centre on the effect of such symbionts on: i) the distribution of mitochondrial variants in different populations and genetic distances thus derived. Both qualitative and quantitative assessment will be made by comparing genetic distances based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences from different populations of A. bipunctata and of coccinellid species which do not possess an 'ultraselfish' cytoplasmic bacterium. ii) the evolution of mitochondrial genome size. Mitochondrial DNA analysis in A. bipunctata has indicated the molecule to be unusually small which may be the result of an infected organism's 'strategy' to dispose of such bacteria. This hypothesis will be investigated by comparing the size of the mitochondrial genome of pairs of related insect taxa, one bearing and the other lacking an 'ultraselfish' cytobiotic bacterium.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

• University of Cambridge · CambridgeCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
• Not availableCity levelGermany

Links

• View on CORDIS