''Asobara'' is a genus of
parasitoid wasp
Parasitoid wasps are a large group of hymenopteran superfamilies, with all but the wood wasps (Orussoidea) being in the wasp-waisted Apocrita. As parasitoids, they lay their eggs on or in the bodies of other arthropods, sooner or later causin ...
s in the family
Braconidae
The Braconidae are a family of parasitoid wasps. After the closely related Ichneumonidae, braconids make up the second-largest family in the order Hymenoptera, with about 17,000 recognized species and many thousands more undescribed. One analysis ...
. The genus is best known for the ''
Drosophila
''Drosophila'' () is a genus of flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "small fruit flies" or (less frequently) pomace flies, vinegar flies, or wine flies, a reference to the characteristic of many speci ...
'' parasitoid ''Asobara tabida'', which is notable as both a model for parasitoid wasp infection in insects, and also as a representative of the
hologenome theory of evolution
The hologenome theory of evolution recasts the individual animal or plant (and other multicellular organisms) as a community or a "holobiont" – the host plus all of its symbiotic microbes. Consequently, the collective genomes of the holobiont for ...
.
''Asobara tabida'' is commensally infected with ''Wolbachia'', and cannot reproduce in the absence of ''
Wolbachia
''Wolbachia'' is a genus of intracellular bacteria that infects mainly arthropod species, including a high proportion of insects, and also some nematodes. It is one of the most common parasitic microbes, and is possibly the most common reproducti ...
'' infection. As such, the genome of ''Asobara'' is directly tied to the genome of its commensal ''Wolbachia''
symbiont
Symbiosis (from Greek , , "living together", from , , "together", and , bíōsis, "living") is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two different biological organisms, be it mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasi ...
, and the two are considered to have a
hologenome
The hologenome theory of evolution recasts the individual animal or plant (and other multicellular organisms) as a community or a " holobiont" – the host plus all of its symbiotic microbes. Consequently, the collective genomes of the holobiont fo ...
.
References
Further reading
*
*Rolff, J., and A. R. Kraaijeveld. "Host preference and survival in selected lines of a ''Drosophila'' parasitoid, ''Asobara tabida''." Journal of Evolutionary Biology 14.5 (2001): 742–745.
*Green, D. M., A. R. Kraaijeveld, and H. C. J. Godfray. "Evolutionary interactions between ''Drosophila melanogaster'' and its parasitoid ''Asobara tabida''." Heredity85.5 (2000): 450–458.
*
*
External links
*
Braconidae genera
{{Ichneumonoidea-stub