How Hosts Taxonomy, Trophy, and Endosymbionts Shape Microbiome Diversity in Beetles

Abstract

Bacterial communities play a crucial role in the biology, ecology, and evolution of multicellular organisms. In this research, the microbiome of 24 selected beetle species representing five families (Carabidae, Staphylinidae, Curculionidae, Chrysomelidae, Scarabaeidae) and three trophic guilds (carnivorous, herbivorous, detrivorous) was examined using 16S rDNA sequencing on the Illumina platform. The aim of the study was to compare diversity within and among species on various levels of organization, including evaluation of the impact of endosymbiotic bacteria. Collected data showed that beetles possess various bacterial communities and that microbiota of individuals of particular species hosts are intermixed. The most diverse microbiota were found in Carabidae and Scarabaeidae; the least diverse, in Staphylinidae. On higher organization levels, the diversity of bacteria was more dissimilar between families, while the most distinct with respect to their microbiomes were trophic guilds. Moreover, eight taxa of endosymbiotic bacteria were detected including common genera such as Wolbachia, Rickettsia, and Spiroplasma, as well as the rarely detected Cardinium, Arsenophonus, Buchnera, Sulcia, Regiella, and Serratia. There were no correlations among the abundance of the most common Wolbachia and Rickettsia; a finding that does not support the hypothesis that these bacteria occur interchangeably. The abundance of endosymbionts only weakly and negatively correlates with diversity of the whole microbiome in beetles. Overall, microbiome diversity was found to be more dependent on host phylogeny than on the abundance of endosymbionts. This is the first study in which bacteria diversity is compared between numerous species of beetles in a standardized manner.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s00248-019-01358-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

High Wolbachia Strain Diversity in a Clade of Dung Beetles Endemic to Madagascar

“…All strain variants characterized in these dung-beetle species are very similar to each other, but their phylogenetic tree is not congruent with that of their host. Such incongruence has been reported in many host-symbiont associations (Jäckel et al, 2013;Sontowski et al, 2015;Kolasa et al, 2019), including Wolbachiainfected insects of Madagascar (Linares et al, 2009;Zouache et al, 2011). Although it is possible that some of our Nanos dung-beetle species inherited their Wolbachia infections from a common ancestor, while others have lost or gained new infections during species radiation, our data also does not suggest radiation of Wolbachia in parallel to the radiation of N. clypeatus group.…”

“…There, these two species, which are generalists in their choice of dung, may enter in contact and share dung patches or parasites. These ecological links may have facilitated the horizontal transfer of Wolbachia between the two species (Kolasa et al, 2019). Unfortunately, little is known about the parasitoid community associated to the Malagasy dung beetles, and no study has ever investigated the potential for dung as a suitable environment for symbiont transfer between carrion insects.…”

Diversity and Composition of the Gut Microbiota in the Developmental Stages of the Dung Beetle Copris incertus Say (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae)

“…For instance, beneficial symbionts facilitate the digestion and production of limited nutrients (Dillon and Dillon, 2004;Douglas, 2009) and protect to the insect-host from pathogens (Engel and Moran, 2013). The composition of the insect gut microbiota has received great attention, it has been demonstrated that the developmental stage (Chen et al, 2016), diet type (Colman et al, 2012;Franzini et al, 2016), host taxonomy (Colman et al, 2012;Kolasa et al, 2019), environment (Ng et al, 2018), and social interactions (Martinson et al, 2012) are important factors affecting the composition and diversity of the microbial communities in the insect gut.…”

The microbiota in spider mite feces potentially reflects intestinal bacterial communities in the host

“…Previous studies have shown that the bacterial diversity of arthropods may be influenced by host species (Koch et al, 2013;McFrederick et al, 2014;Martinson et al, 2017;Näpflin & Schmid-Hempel, 2018;Kolasa et al, 2019). In this study, the microbiota communities among spider mite species are variable.…”