Wolbachia feminises a spider host with assistance from co-infecting symbionts

Arthropods commonly harbor maternally-transmitted bacterial symbionts that manipulate host biology. Multiple heritable symbionts can co-infect the same individual, allowing these host-restricted bacteria to engage in cooperation or conflict, which can ultimately affect host phenotype. The spider Mermessus fradeorum is variably infected with up to five heritable symbionts: Rickettsiella (R), Tisiphia (T), and three strains of Wolbachia (W1-3). Quintuply infected spiders are feminized, causing genetic males to develop as phenotypic females and produce almost exclusively female offspring. We compared feminization rates (proportion of female offspring out of total) across nine infection combinations. We also compared feminization rates across a subset of three infection types (Uninfected, RTW1, and RTW123) in a second iteration of the experiment to validate coinfection effects on feminization strength observed in the first iteration of the feminization experiment. In both experiments we fou..., , # Data from: Wolbachia feminises a spider host with assistance from co-infecting symbionts

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.f4qrfj77b](10.5061/dryad.f4qrfj77b)

## Description of the data and file structure

This README file was generated on 2025-06-11 by Matthew Doremus.

GENERAL INFORMATION

1\. Title of Dataset: Wolbachia feminises its spider host with assistance from co-infecting symbionts

2\. Author Information

```
A. Principal Contact Information

Name: Matthew Doremus

Institution: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Address: Urbana, IL USA

Email: [e-mail]

B. Co-investigator Contact Information

Name: Jen White

Institution: University of Kentucky

Address: Lexington, KY USA

Email: [e-mail]

C. Co-investigator Contact Information

Name: Yuval Gottlieb

Institution: Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Address: Rehovot, Israel

Email: [e-mail]
```

3\. Date of data collection (single date, range, approximate date):...,