2. Behavioral Biology TALKS - Deutsche Zoologische Gesellschaft

lineages: euphorbiae, the endemic lineage “melitensis” and migrants of the North
African tithymali. By contrast, no “italica” could be found on Malta. We hypothesize
that the euphorbiae lineage must have arrived on Malta via Italy but might have
vanished in Southern Italy possibly as recently as the end of the 20th century,
concurrently with climate warming. Thus, euphorbiae could have been outcompeted
in Italy by “italica” which - as typical for more southern populations - potentially
tends to generate more generations per year, while it could have been maintained by
isolation and genetic drift on the island of Malta. We scanned 27 Natural History
collections (mostly Italian and German museums) for relevant individuals from Italy
and Malta and were able to obtain tissue samples from more than 200 moths that
were caught as far back as 1884. For genetic analyses we sequenced three short
fragments of about 800bp in total of the COI/II genes with which the main lineages
are still distinguishable. We found substantial variation in the distribution and
frequency of the lineages through the decades, demonstrating the occurrence of the
European mainland lineages euphorbiae and “enigmatica” in Southern Italy and Sicily
before 1970. Hence, the dominance of “italica” in Southern Italy has not always been
as strong as inferred from the recent sampling.
����91 Barbara Milutinovic
The Red Flour Beetle as a Model for Bacterial Oral Infections and Host-Parasite
Coevolution
Authors: Barbara Milutinovic 1 , Clemens Stolpe 1 , Robert Peuß 1 , Sophie Armitage 1 ,
Christina Höfling 1 Christina, Joachim Kurtz 1
Affiliations: 1 University of Münster
Host-parasite interactions are ideal systems for studying fast co-evolutionary
processes of adaptation and counter-adaptation. Laboratory infection systems that
make use of natural ways of infection enable experimental studies of such hostparasite
co-evolutionary processes. We established an oral infection protocol for the
red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum and its coleopteran-specific microparasite
Bacillus thuringiensis var. tenebrionis (Btt). We found that the infection success
depends on the dietary spore concentration and the exposure time, as well as on the
host genetic background since T. castaneum populations varied in their susceptibility
in the laboratory. The concentration of spores isolated from single, experimentally
infected cadavers was sufficient for reinfection of further larvae. However, the spore
number and growth capabilities of individual isolates varied strongly among beetle
cadavers, which may indicate variability in the strength of host counter-measures
against this micro-parasite.
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