PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Guanyang Zhang
AU  - Patrick Browne
AU  - Geng Zhen
AU  - Andrew Johnston
AU  - Hinsby Cadillo-Quiroz
AU  - Nico Franz
TI  - Endosymbiont diversity and evolution across weevil tree of life
AID  - 10.1101/171181
DP  - 2017 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 171181
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/08/01/171181.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/08/01/171181.full
AB  - As early as the time of Paul Buchner, a pioneer of endosymbionts research, it was shown that weevils host diverse bacterial endosymbionts, probably only second to the hemipteran insects. To date, there is no taxonomically broad survey of endosymbionts in weevils, which preclude any systematic understanding of the diversity and evolution of endosymbionts in this large group of insects, which comprise nearly 7% of described diversity of all insects. We gathered the largest known taxonomic sample of weevils representing four families and 17 subfamilies to perform a study of weevil endosymbionts. We found that the diversity of endosymbionts is exceedingly high, with as many as 44 distinct kinds of endosymbionts detected. We recovered an ancient origin of association of Nardonella with weevils, dating back to 124 MYA. We found repeated losses of this endosymbionts, but also cophylogeny with weevils. We also investigated patterns of coexistence and coexclusion.