BMC Biology BioMed Central Research article Open Access The diversity of reproductive parasites among arthropods: Wolbachia do not walk alone Olivier Duron*1, Didier Bouchon2, Sébastien Boutin2, Lawrence Bellamy1, Liqin Zhou1, Jan Engelstädter1,3 and Gregory D Hurst4 Address: 1University College London, Department of Biology, Stephenson Way, London NW1 2HE, UK, 2Université de Poitiers, Ecologie Evolution Symbiose, UMR CNRS 6556, Avenue du Recteur Pineau, 86022 Poitiers, France, 3Institute of Integrative Biology (IBZ), ETH Zurich, Universitätsstrasse, ETH Zentrum, CHN K12.1, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland and 4University of Liverpool, School of Biological Sciences, Crown Street, Liverpool L69 7ZB, UK Email: Olivier Duron* -
[email protected]; Didier Bouchon -
[email protected]; Sébastien Boutin -
[email protected]; Lawrence Bellamy -
[email protected]; Liqin Zhou -
[email protected]; Jan Engelstädter -
[email protected]; Gregory D Hurst -
[email protected] * Corresponding author Published: 24 June 2008 Received: 10 March 2008 Accepted: 24 June 2008 BMC Biology 2008, 6:27 doi:10.1186/1741-7007-6-27 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/6/27 © 2008 Duron et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: Inherited bacteria have come to be recognised as important components of arthropod biology. In addition to mutualistic symbioses, a range of other inherited bacteria are known to act either as reproductive parasites or as secondary symbionts.