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KILLING THE UNBORN. “In the simplest case, CI causes embryonic mortality in crosses between symbiont-infected males and uninfected females (unidirectional CI). Because Wolbachia-infected females can still reproduce successfully with infected males, this provides them with a fitness advantage.” (CI = cytoplasmic incompatibility). https://lnkd.in/dXjWp9f View in LinkedIn

SPACE “is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.” Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe. https://lnkd.in/dDeqdgh View in LinkedIn

MESSING WITH THE NUTS. “Maternally transmitted bacteria in the genus Wolbachia commonly manipulate the reproduction of their arthropod hosts by inducing cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI).” https://lnkd.in/dXjWp9f View in LinkedIn

THUMB ON THE SCALES. “In females, Wolbachia rescues the cross and allows development to proceed normally. This provides a reproductive advantage to infected females, allowing the maternally transmitted symbiont to spread rapidly through host populations.” https://lnkd.in/dXjWp9f View in LinkedIn

DEATH IF NO PARASITE IN HOST. “Cytoplasmic incompatibility is a selfish reproductive manipulation induced by the endosymbiont Wolbachia in arthropods. In males Wolbachia modifies sperm, leading to embryonic mortality in crosses with Wolbachia-free females.” https://lnkd.in/dXjWp9f View in LinkedIn

THE STAR of this series is a bacteria called Wolbachia. “It is one of the most common parasitic microbes and is possibly the most common reproductive parasite in the biosphere. Its interactions with its hosts are often complex, and in some cases have evolved to be mutualistic rather than parasitic. Some host species cannot reproduce, or even survive, without Wolbachia colonisation. One study concluded that more than 16% of neotropical insect species carry bacteria of this genus, and as many as 25 to 70% of all insect species are estimated to be potential hosts.” https://lnkd.in/dZe2vg8 View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE for this and next weekend focuses on a bacterial parasite which has evolved an extraordinary proliferation strategy: make only infected hosts able to reproduce. The article is titled: Life and Death of Selfish Genes: Comparative Genomics Reveals the Dynamic Evolution of Cytoplasmic Incompatibility. https://lnkd.in/dXjWp9f View in LinkedIn

Yes, as it seems. This is his habit. Lucky me. View in LinkedIn

TWO AUTHORS. “The design of our bodies is simultaneously extraordinarily precise and unbelievably slipshod. It is as if the best engineers in the universe took every seventh day off and turned the work over to bumbling amateurs.” (Randolph Nesse and George Williams) https://lnkd.in/d9KtiYn View in LinkedIn