Data from: Tracing horizontal Wolbachia movements among bees (Anthophila): a combined approach using multilocus sequence typing data and host phylogeny

The endosymbiotic bacterium Wolbachia enhances its spread via vertical
transmission by generating reproductive effects in its hosts, most notably
cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI). Additionally, frequent interspecific
horizontal transfer is evident from a lack of phylogenetic congruence
between Wolbachia and its hosts. The mechanisms of this lateral transfer
are largely unclear. To identify potential pathways of Wolbachia
movements, we performed multilocus sequence typing of Wolbachia strains
from bees (Anthophila). Using a host phylogeny and ecological data, we
tested various models of horizontal endosymbiont transmission. In general,
Wolbachia strains seem to be randomly distributed among bee hosts.
Kleptoparasite-host associations among bees as well as other ecological
links could not be supported as sole basis for the spread of Wolbachia.
However, cophylogenetic analyses and divergence time estimations suggest
that Wolbachia may persist within a host lineage over considerable
timescales and that strictly vertical transmission and subsequent random
loss of infections across lineages may have had a greater impact on
Wolbachia strain distribution than previously estimated. Although general
conclusions about Wolbachia movements among arthropod hosts cannot be
made, we present a framework by which precise assumptions about shared
evolutionary histories of Wolbachia and a host taxon can be modelled and
tested.