Rubin Benjamin E R, Sanders Jon G, Turner Kyle M, Pierce Naomi E, Kocher Sarah D
Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
Department of Pediatrics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
R Soc Open Sci. 2018 Jul 11;5(7):180369. doi: 10.1098/rsos.180369. eCollection 2018 Jul.
Social interactions can facilitate transmission of microbes between individuals, reducing variation in gut communities within social groups. Thus, the evolution of social behaviours and symbiont community composition have the potential to be tightly linked. We explored this connection by characterizing the diversity of bacteria associated with both eusocial and solitary bee species within the behaviourally variable family Halictidae using 16S amplicon sequencing. Contrary to expectations, we found few differences in bacterial abundance or variation between social forms; most halictid species appear to share similar gut bacterial communities. However, several strains of a genus described as a symbiont in a variety of insects but yet to be characterized in bees, differ in abundance between eusocial and solitary bees. Phylogenetic reconstructions based on whole-genome alignments indicate that has independently colonized halictids at least three times. These strains appear to be mutually exclusive within individual bees, although they are not host-species-specific and no signatures of vertical transmission were observed, suggesting that strains compete for access to hosts. The symbiosis between halictids and therefore appears to be in its early stages.
社交互动能够促进微生物在个体间的传播，减少社会群体内肠道群落的差异。因此，社会行为的进化与共生菌群落组成有可能紧密相连。我们通过使用16S扩增子测序来表征行为多变的隧蜂科中群居和独居蜜蜂物种相关细菌的多样性，从而探究这种联系。与预期相反，我们发现不同社会形态之间在细菌丰度或差异方面几乎没有差异；大多数隧蜂物种似乎共享相似的肠道细菌群落。然而，一个在多种昆虫中被描述为共生菌但尚未在蜜蜂中进行特征描述的属的几个菌株，在群居和独居蜜蜂之间的丰度有所不同。基于全基因组比对的系统发育重建表明，该属至少三次独立定殖于隧蜂。这些菌株在单个蜜蜂体内似乎相互排斥，尽管它们不是宿主物种特异性的，也未观察到垂直传播的迹象，这表明该属菌株竞争宿主。因此，隧蜂与该属之间的共生关系似乎尚处于早期阶段。
