In arthropods, the intracellular bacteria W olbachia often induce cytoplasmic incompatibility ( CI ) between sperm and egg, which causes conditional embryonic death and promotes the spatial spread of W olbachia infections into host populations. The ability of W olbachia to spread in natural populations through CI has attracted attention for using these bacteria in vector‐borne disease control. The dynamics of incompatible W ol...

Wolbachia is a group of maternally inherited endosymbiotic bacteria that infect and induce cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) in a wide range of arthropods. In contrast to other species, the mosquito Culex pipiens displays an extremely high number of CI types suggesting differential infection by multiple Wolbachia strains. Attempts so far failed to detect Wolbachia polymorphism that might explain this high level of CI diversity...