Evidence against the presence of Wolbachia in the crayfish species, Orconectes virilis and Procambarus clarkii

Background/Question/Methods

Wolbachia is a genus of intracellular alpha-Proteobacteria that is maternally inherited and is capable of inducing a variety of reproductive alterations in host species.  The host range of Wolbachia is not determined completely, but is known to contain a number of arthropod taxa, including crustaceans.  Wolbachia has not been reported in crayfish, but sampling has been limited to date. We examine two species of crayfish, Orconectes virilis and a Procambarus clarkii, for Wolbachia infection using a suite of Wolbachia-specific primers in PCR assays.

Results/Conclusions

All specimens tested yielded negative results for Wolbachia infection and mathematical analysis of sample size shows a near 100% probability of detection for populations with greater than 15% infection rate.  Results and analysis provide robust evidence against the presence of Wolbachia in these populations of crayfish.