Various infection status and molecular evidence for horizontal transmission and recombination of Wolbachia and Cardinium among rice planthoppers and related species

Wolbachia and Cardinium are widely distributed and are considered important for their ability to disturb reproduction and affect other fitness-related traits of their hosts. By using multilocus sequence typing （MLST）, RFLP （restriction fragment length poly- morphism） and 16S ribosomal DNA gene sequencing methods, we extensively surveyed Wolbachia and Cardinium infection status of four predominant rice planthoppers and one kind of leafhopper in different rice fields. The results demonstrated that Sogatellafurcifera （Horv~ith） and Laodelphax striatellus （Fallrn） were infected with the same Wolbachia strain （wStri）, while Nilaparvata lugens （St~l） and its closely related species Nilaparvata muiri China were infected with two phylogeneticlly distant strains, wLug and wMui, respectively. Three new Wolbachia strains （provisionally named wMfasl, wMfas2 and wMfas3） were detected in the leafhopper Macrostelesfascifrons （Stal）. Only S. furcifera was co-infected with Cardinium, which indicated that the distribution of Cardinium in these rice planthop- pers was narrower than that of Wolbachia. Unambiguous intragenic recombination events among these Wolbachia strains and incongruent phylogenetic relationships show that the connections between different Wolbachia strains and hosts were more complex than we expected. These results suggest that horizontal transmission and host associated special- ization are two factors affecting Wolbachia and Cardinium infections among planthoppers and their related species.