Characterization and Comparison of Convergence Among Cephalotus follicularis Pitcher Plant-Associated Communities With Those of Nepenthes and Sarracenia Found Worldwide

Abstract

The Albany pitcher plant, Cephalotus follicularis, has evolved cup-shaped leaves and a carnivorous habit completely independently from other lineages of pitcher plants. It is the only species in the family Cephalotaceae and is restricted to a small region of Western Australia. Here, we used metabarcoding to characterize the bacterial and eukaryotic communities living in C. follicularis pitchers at two different sites. Bacterial and eukaryotic communities were correlated in both richness and composition; however, the factors associated with richness were not the same across bacteria and eukaryotes, with bacterial richness differing with fluid color, and eukaryotic richness differing with the concentration of DNA extracted from the fluid, a measure roughly related to biomass. For turnover in composition, the variation in both bacterial and eukaryotic communities primarily differed with fluid acidity, fluid color, and sampling site. We compared C. follicularis-associated community diversity with that of Australian Nepenthes mirabilis, as well as a global comparison of Southeast Asian Nepenthes and North American Sarracenia. Our results showed similarity in richness with communities from other pitcher plants, and specific bacterial taxa shared among all three independent lineages of pitcher plants. Overall, we saw convergence in richness and particular clades colonizing pitcher plants around the world, suggesting that these highly specialized habitats select for certain numbers and types of inhabitants.

Omics Approaches in Uncovering Molecular Evolution and Physiology of Botanical Carnivory

“…Lastly, a metagenomics study on the bacterial and eukaryotic communities in C. follicularis , Nepenthes , and Sarracenia pitchers from Australia, Southeast Asia, and North America, respectively, showed similarities in the inquiline communities with specific bacterial taxa that are shared among all three independent lineages of these pitcher plants [ 40 ]. This suggests that the pitcher is the main selection factor for the microbiome, regardless of the geographical distribution or evolutionary history of the pitcher plants.…”

Monitoring insect biodiversity and comparison of sampling strategies using metabarcoding: A case study in the Yanshan Mountains, China

“…Nearly 20 years ago, the initiative of DNA barcoding offered an opportunity to identify specimens for researchers beyond the taxonomic expertise through getting a standard sequence of genes from a single sample and then searching against a reference library (Ekrem et al, 2007;Hajibabaei et al, 2007;Hebert et al, 2003Hebert et al, , 2004. Compared with the initial approach of DNA barcoding, DNA metabarcoding makes the progress less costly but more rapidly (Braukmann et al, 2019;Valentini et al, 2016), which features it feasible to analyze the composition and structure of entire insect communities, and become a widely accepted and successfully applied in the studies of community ecology (Bittleston et al, 2022;Keck et al, 2022;Marquina et al, 2019;Piper et al, 2019;van Zinnicq Bergmann et al, 2021). The mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) has the advantages of conservative, faster evolution rate and the large amount of insect taxonomic information available for this gene in the online repositories (Nehal et al, 2021;Ren et al, 2011).…”