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Title: WOLBACHIA INFECTION IN THE COFFEE BERRY BORER, HYPOTHENEMUS HAMPEI (FERRARI) (COLEOPTERA: SCOLYTIDAE

Author
item Vega, Fernando
item BENAVIDES, PABLO - PURDUE UNIVERSITY
item STUART, JEFF - PURDUE UNIVERSITY
item O'NEILL, SCOTT - YALE UNIVERSITY

Submitted to: Annals of the Entomological Society of America
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/20/2002
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: The coffee berry borer is the most devastating pest of coffee throughout the world. Eggs are deposited inside coffee berries, and insects feed on the coffee seed, severely reducing yields. The insect exhibits a sex ratio that favors females (10 females for each male), which favors a rapid population increase. A bacterium in the genus Wolbachia is known to cause female-biased sex ratios, and was detected using molecular techniques in coffee berry borers from 11 countries. This finding increases the knowledge on the basic biology of the coffee berry borer, and provides new research areas to explore in attempts aimed at developing biological control programs against this insect pest.

Technical Abstract: A nested polymerase chain reaction protocol yielded positive detection of the maternally inherited bacterium Wolbachia in total genomic DNA from coffee berry borers collected in Benin, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, India, Kenya, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Uganda. Wolbachia was not detected in specimens from Cameroon, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Indonesia and Peru. Amplified bands from India and Brazil were cloned and a 437 bp consensus sequence matched a GenBank Wolbachia group B accession. The possible implications of Wolbachia infection in the coffee berry borer are discussed.