Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Institute of Ocean and Earth Sciences, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Sci Rep. 2018 Jul 17;8(1):10777. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-29159-2.
The weaver ant Oecophylla smaragdina is an aggressive predator of other arthropods and has been employed as a biological control agent against many insect pests in plantations. Despite playing important roles in pest management, information about the microbiota of O. smaragdina is limited. In this work, a number of O. smaragdina colonies (n = 12) from Malaysia had been studied on their microbiome profile using Illumina 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. We characterized the core microbiota associated with these O. smaragdina and investigated variation between colonies from different environments. Across all 12 samples, 97.8% of the sequences were assigned to eight bacterial families and most communities were dominated by families Acetobacteraceae and Lactobacillaceae. Comparison among colonies revealed predominance of Acetobacteraceae in O. smaragdina from forest areas but reduced abundance was observed in colonies from urban areas. In addition, our findings also revealed distinctive community composition in O. smaragdina showing little taxonomic overlap with previously reported ant microbiota. In summary, our work provides information regarding microbiome of O. smaragdina which is essential for establishing healthy colonies. This study also forms the basis for further study on microbiome of O. smaragdina from other regions.
织叶蚁 Oecophylla smaragdina 是一种具有侵略性的捕食者，捕食其他节肢动物，已被用作针对种植园中许多害虫的生物防治剂。尽管在害虫管理中发挥着重要作用，但有关 O. smaragdina 微生物组的信息有限。在这项工作中，使用 Illumina 16S rRNA 基因扩增子测序对来自马来西亚的多个 O. smaragdina 殖民地（n=12）的微生物组图谱进行了研究。我们描述了与这些 O. smaragdina 相关的核心微生物群，并研究了来自不同环境的殖民地之间的变化。在所有 12 个样本中，97.8%的序列被分配到 8 个细菌科，大多数群落由醋酸杆菌科和乳杆菌科主导。对殖民地的比较表明，森林地区的 O. smaragdina 以醋酸杆菌科为主，但城市地区的殖民地丰度降低。此外，我们的研究结果还揭示了 O. smaragdina 中独特的群落组成，与先前报道的蚂蚁微生物群没有明显的分类重叠。总之，我们的工作提供了有关 O. smaragdina 微生物组的信息，这对于建立健康的殖民地至关重要。这项研究还为其他地区的 O. smaragdina 微生物组的进一步研究奠定了基础。
