Michael Gerth
  • News & Blog
  • About
  • Research
    • Experimental evolution of Spiroplasma after host shifts
    • Wolbachia phylogenomics
    • Rickettsial symbionts in green lacewings
    • The role of Wolbachia in quill mites
    • Methods in molecular phylogenetics
  • Publications
  • Resources

Wolbachia phylogenomics

Wolbachia is the most widespread bacterial endosymbiont. It is found in about 40% of all terrestrial arthropods, and in filarial nematodes. Among Wolbachia strains, multiple genetically distinct lineages can be differentiated. These lineages differ in their host spectrum, their prevalence and in the phenotypes they can induce in their hosts. I am interested in reconstructing the evolutionary history of these Wolbachia lineages in order to understand which evolutionary transitions have occurred at what time in the history of Wolbachia.

​Furthermore, I study the evolution of Wolbachia genomes that accompany evolutionary transitions. To this end I focus on 1) so far neglected Wolbachia lineages from undersampled host taxa and 2) very recently diverged Wolbachia lineages. This approach enables insights into both very short-term and ancient evolutionary events.

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Further reading

​Gerth M, Bleidorn C (2016) Comparative genomics provides a timeframe for Wolbachia evolution and exposes a recent biotin synthesis operon transfer. Nature Microbiology 2: 16241.

Gerth M, Gansauge M-T, Weigert A and Bleidorn C (2014) Phylogenomic analyses uncover origin and spread of the Wolbachia pandemic. Nature Communications 5: 5117. 

Blog entries: 
Novel, "exotic" Wolbachia genomes
Wolbachia supergroup R?​
  • News & Blog
  • About
  • Research
    • Experimental evolution of Spiroplasma after host shifts
    • Wolbachia phylogenomics
    • Rickettsial symbionts in green lacewings
    • The role of Wolbachia in quill mites
    • Methods in molecular phylogenetics
  • Publications
  • Resources