Department of Entomology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China.
Insect Sci. 2020 Oct;27(5):859-868. doi: 10.1111/1744-7917.12716. Epub 2019 Sep 8.
Microorganisms provide many physiological functions to herbivorous hosts. Spider mites (genus Tetranychus) are important agricultural pests throughout the world; however, the composition of the spider mite microbial community, especially gut microbiome, remains unclear. Here, we investigated the bacterial community in five spider mite species and their associated feces by deep sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. The composition of the bacterial community was significantly different among the five prevalent spider mite species, and some bacterial symbionts showed host-species specificity. Moreover, the abundance of the bacterial community in spider mite feces was significantly higher than that in the corresponding spider mite samples. However, Flavobacterium was detected in all samples, and represent a "core microbiome". Remarkably, the maternally inherited endosymbiont Wolbachia was detected in both spider mite and feces. Overall, these results offer insight into the complex community of symbionts in spider mites, and give a new direction for future studies.
微生物为草食性宿主提供了许多生理功能。 蛛形纲螨虫（属 Tetranychus）是全世界重要的农业害虫；然而，蛛形纲螨虫微生物群落的组成，特别是肠道微生物组，仍然不清楚。在这里，我们通过对 16S rRNA 基因的深度测序，研究了五种蛛形纲螨虫及其相关粪便中的细菌群落。 在五种流行的蛛形纲螨虫物种中，细菌群落的组成有显著差异，一些细菌共生体表现出宿主特异性。 此外，蛛形纲螨虫粪便中的细菌群落丰度明显高于相应的蛛形纲螨虫样本。 然而，所有样本中都检测到了黄杆菌，代表了一个“核心微生物组”。 值得注意的是，母系遗传的内共生菌沃尔巴克氏体（Wolbachia）在蛛形纲螨虫和粪便中均有检测到。 总的来说，这些结果深入了解了蛛形纲螨虫共生体的复杂群落，并为未来的研究提供了新的方向。
