Department of Microbiology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2018 Dec 11;13(12):e0208917. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0208917. eCollection 2018.
Praying mantids are predators that consume a wide variety of insects. While the gut microbiome of carnivorous mammals is distinct from that of omnivores and herbivores, the role of the gut microbiome among predatory insects is relatively understudied. Praying mantids are the closest known relatives to termites and cockroaches, which are known for their diverse gut microbiota. However, little is known about the mantid gut microbiota or their importance to host health. In this work, we report the results of a 16S rRNA gene-based study of gut microbiome composition in adults and late-instar larvae of three mantid species. We found that the praying mantis gut microbiome exhibits substantial variation in bacterial diversity and community composition. The hindgut of praying mantids were often dominated by microbes that are present in low abundance or not found in the guts of their insect prey. Future studies will explore the role of these microbes in the digestion of the dietary substrates and/or the degradation of toxins produced by their insect prey.
螳螂是一种捕食者，它们吃各种各样的昆虫。虽然肉食性哺乳动物的肠道微生物群与杂食性和草食性动物的肠道微生物群不同，但捕食性昆虫的肠道微生物群的作用相对研究较少。螳螂是已知的与白蚁和蟑螂最接近的亲缘关系，而白蚁和蟑螂以其多样化的肠道微生物群而闻名。然而，对于螳螂的肠道微生物群或它们对宿主健康的重要性知之甚少。在这项工作中，我们报告了对三种螳螂物种成虫和晚期幼虫肠道微生物群组成的基于 16S rRNA 基因的研究结果。我们发现，螳螂的肠道微生物群在细菌多样性和群落组成方面表现出很大的变化。螳螂的后肠通常由在数量上很少或在它们的昆虫猎物的肠道中没有发现的微生物主导。未来的研究将探索这些微生物在消化食物基质和/或降解其昆虫猎物产生的毒素方面的作用。
