Transposable element loads in a bacterial symbiont of weevils are extremely variable.

Not only are transposable elements profuse in the bacterial endosymbiont of maize weevils, but we found that their quantities also vary approximately 10-fold among individual weevils. Because multicopy elements can facilitate homologous recombination, this insertion sequence (IS) load variability suggests that these essentially asexual bacteria may exhibit substantial intraspecific genomic variation.