The Wolbachia bacterium, one of the most prevalent endosymbiotic bacteria, is known to induce reproductive anomalies in various invertebrate taxa. We investigated Wolbachia infection frequency in 203 Coleopteran insects collected from Korea. Among them 26 species (12.8%) across families proved to harbor Wolbachia. The phylogenetic trees of two Wolbachia specific genes imply that there have been complex horizontal gene transfers and recombination events within and between divergent Wolbachia subgroups. Interestingly, we also find that the infection frequency is noticeably low and incongruent at the family level when compared to other literature cases of Wolbachia infection in beetle species.

• Gilsang Jeong(Divison of Basic Research, National Institute of Ecology, Korea)
• Soyeon Park(Divison of Basic Research, National Institute of Ecology, Korea)
• Taeman Han(Applied Entomology Division, National Institute of Agricultural Science, Korea)
• Heachul Park(Applied Entomology Division, National Institute of Agricultural Science, Korea)