Department of Evolution, ecology and behaviour student Louise Reynolds recently gave a talk on endosymbionts and here is what she had to say:
‘On Thursday 21st April I visited Loreto College, Manchester to give a talk to around 60 Upper Sixth biology students about endosymbionts. Biology is a very popular option at the college, which has 1000 students taking the subject at A-level.
Endosymbionts, such as Wolbachia are commonly found in insects and other arthropods. They live within the cells of their host and are inherited through females. During my talk I spoke about different aspects of Wolbachia biology.
Wolbachia is able to manipulate the sex determination system of its host, for instance some strains of Wolbachia cause the male offspring of infected females to die. Wolbachia is currently being trialed as a form of biological pest control to halt diseases that are spread by the mosquito Aedes aegypti, such as Dengue Fever, Zika, and Chikungunya. I also spoke about my own research investigating the genetics of rapid evolutionary change in the blue moon butterfly. This butterfly is infected with a strain of Wolbachia that causes male offspring of infected female butterflies to die. The blue moon butterfly has evolved the ability to suppress male-killing so that infected butterflies are able to produce both male and female offspring.
After the talk I had some sandwiches and juice, and spoke to students interested in studying biology at university.’
