Dataset Information

Population genetics and migration pathways of the Mediterranean fruit fly Ceratitis capitata inferred with coalescent methods.

ABSTRACT: Background:Invasive species are a growing threat to food biosecurity and cause significant economic losses in agricultural systems. Despite their damaging effect, they are attractive models for the study of evolution and adaptation in newly colonised environments. The Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata, as a member of the family Tephritidae, is one of the most studied invasive species feeding on many fruit crops in the tropics and subtropics worldwide. This study aims to determine the global macrogeographic population structure of Ceratitis capitata and reconstruct its potential migration routes. Method:A partial mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I gene from >400 individual medflies and 14 populations from four continents was sequenced and subjected to Bayesian demographic modelling. Results:The Afrotropical populations (Kenya, South Africa and Ghana) harbour the majority of haplotypes detected, which also are highly divergent, in accordance with the presumed ancestral range of medflies in Sub-Saharan Africa. All other populations in the presumed non-native areas were dominated by a single haplotype also present in South Africa, in addition to a few, closely related haplotypes unique to a single local population or regional set, but missing from Africa. Bayesian coalescence methods revealed recent migration pathways from Africa to all continents, in addition to limited bidirectional migration among many local and intercontinental routes. Conclusion:The detailed investigation of the recent migration history highlights the interconnectedness of affected crop production regions worldwide and pinpoints the routes and potential source areas requiring more specific quarantine measures.

SUBMITTER: Arias MB

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6086102 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Population genetics and migration pathways of the Mediterranean fruit fly <i>Ceratitis capitata</i> inferred with coalescent methods.

Arias Maria Belen MB Elfekih Samia S Vogler Alfried P AP

PeerJ 20180807

<h4>Background</h4>Invasive species are a growing threat to food biosecurity and cause significant economic losses in agricultural systems. Despite their damaging effect, they are attractive models for the study of evolution and adaptation in newly colonised environments. The Mediterranean fruit fly, <i>Ceratitis capitata</i>, as a member of the family Tephritidae, is one of the most studied invasive species feeding on many fruit crops in the tropics and subtropics worldwide. This study aims to ...[more]

PMID: 30123697

Similar Datasets

Project description:The Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (medfly), is an extremely invasive agricultural pest due to its extremely wide host range and its ability to adapt to a broad range of climatic conditions and habitats. Chemosensory behaviour plays an important role in many crucial stages in the life of this insect, such as the detection of pheromone cues during mate pursuit and odorants during host plant localisation. Thus, the analysis of the chemosensory gene repertoire is an important step for the interpretation of the biology of this species and consequently its invasive potential. Moreover, these genes may represent ideal targets for the development of novel, effective control methods and pest population monitoring systems. Expressed sequence tag libraries from C. capitata adult heads, embryos, male accessory glands and testes were screened for sequences encoding putative odorant binding proteins (OBPs). A total of seventeen putative OBP transcripts were identified, corresponding to 13 Classic, three Minus-C and one Plus-C subfamily OBPs. The tissue distributions of the OBP transcripts were assessed by RT-PCR and a subset of five genes with predicted proteins sharing high sequence similarities and close phylogenetic affinities to Drosophila melanogaster pheromone binding protein related proteins (PBPRPs) were characterised in greater detail. Real Time quantitative PCR was used to assess the effects of maturation, mating and time of day on the transcript abundances of the putative PBPRP genes in the principal olfactory organs, the antennae, in males and females. The results of the present study have facilitated the annotation of OBP genes in the recently released medfly genome sequence and represent a significant contribution to the characterisation of the medfly chemosensory repertoire. The identification of these medfly OBPs/PBPRPs permitted evolutionary and functional comparisons with homologous sequences from other tephritids of the genera Bactrocera and Rhagoletis.

Project description:BACKGROUND: In embryos the maternal-to-zygotic transition (MTZ) integrates post-transcriptional regulation of maternal transcripts with transcriptional activation of the zygotic genome. Although the molecular mechanisms underlying this event are being clarified in Drosophila melanogaster, little is know about the embryogenic processes in other insect species. The recent publication of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from embryos of the global pest species Ceratitis capitata (medfly) has enabled the investigation of embryogenesis in this species and has allowed a comparison of the embryogenic processes in these two related dipteran species, C. capitata and D. melanogaster, that shared a common ancestor 80-100 mya. RESULTS: Using a novel PCR-based sexing method, which takes advantage of a putative LTR retrotransposon MITE insertion on the medfly Y chromosome, the transcriptomes of individual early male and female embryos were analysed using RT-PCR. This study is focused on two crucial aspects of the onset of embryonic development: sex determination and cellular blastoderm formation. Together with the three known medfly genes (Cctransformer, Cctransformer2 and Ccdoublesex), the expression patterns of other medfly genes that are similar to the D. melanogaster sex-determination genes (sisterlessA, groucho, deadpan, Sex-lethal, female lethal d, sans fille and intersex) and four cellular blastoderm formation genes (Rho1, spaghetti squash, slow-as-molasses and serendipity-alpha) were analyzed, allowing us to sketch a preliminary outline of the embryonic process in the medfly. Furthermore, a putative homologue of the Zelda gene has been considered, which in D. melanogaster encodes a DNA-binding factor responsible for the maternal-to-zygotic transition. CONCLUSIONS: Our novel sexing method facilitates the study of i) when the MTZ transition occurs in males and females of C. capitata, ii) when and how the maternal information of "female-development" is reprogrammed in the embryos and iii) similarities and differences in the regulation of gene expression in C. capitata and D. melanogaster. We suggest a new model for the onset of the sex determination cascade in the medfly: the maternally inherited Cctra transcripts in the female embryos are insufficient to produce enough active protein to inhibit the male mode of Cctra splicing. The slow rate of development and the inefficiency of the splicing mechanism in the pre-cellular blastoderm facilitates the male-determining factor (M) activity, which probably acts by inhibiting CcTRA protein activity.

Dataset Information

Population genetics and migration pathways of the Mediterranean fruit fly Ceratitis capitata inferred with coalescent methods.

Publications

Population genetics and migration pathways of the Mediterranean fruit fly <i>Ceratitis capitata</i> inferred with coalescent methods.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets