Wolbachia are endosymbiotic bacteria that infect arthropods. As they are maternally transmitted, the spread of Wolbachia variants within host populations may affect host mtDNA evolution. We sequenced a portion of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I gene from numerous individuals of two Wolbachia ‐infected fire ant species, Solenopsis invicta and S. richteri , to determine how these bacteria influence patterns of mtDNA varia...