Centre for DNA Taxonomy, Molecular Systematics Division, Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata, India.
PLoS One. 2021 Jul 21;16(7):e0251790. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0251790. eCollection 2021.
Spiders being one of the most diverse group in phylum arthropod are of great importance due to their role as predators, silk producer, and in medicinal applications. Spiders in prey-predator relationships play a crucial role in balancing the food-chain of any ecosystem; therefore it is essential to characterize the gut microbiota of spiders collected from natural environments. In the present work, the largest effort so far has been made to characterize the gut microbiota of 35 spider species belonging to four different families using 16S amplicon targeting sequencing. Further, we compared the gut microbiota composition including endosymbiont abundance in spider species collected from different geographical locations. The results obtained revealed the presence of genera like Acinetobacter (15%), V7clade (9%), Wolbachia (8%), Pseudomonas (5%), Bacillus (6%). Although comparative analysis revealed that the gut bacterial composition in all the spider families has a similar pattern, in terms of community richness and evenness. The bacterial diversity in the spider family, Lycosidae are more diverse than in Salticidae, Tetragnathidae and Araneidae. Furthermore, it was observed that the abundance of endosymbiont genera, i.e. Wolbachia and Rickettsia, leads to shift in the abundance of other bacterial taxa and may cause sexual alterations in spider species. Moreover, predicted functional analysis based on PICRUSt2 reveals that gut microbiota of spider species were involved in functions like metabolism of carbohydrates, cofactors and vitamins, amino acids; biosynthesis of organic compounds, fatty acids, lipids etc. Based on the results obtained, it can be said that different locations do not correlate with community composition of gut microbiota in spider species collected from natural environments.
蜘蛛作为节肢动物门中最多样化的群体之一，由于它们作为捕食者、丝绸生产者和在药用应用中的作用而非常重要。在猎物-捕食者关系中，蜘蛛在平衡任何生态系统的食物链中起着至关重要的作用；因此，对从自然环境中收集的蜘蛛的肠道微生物群进行特征描述是必不可少的。在目前的工作中，迄今为止，我们已经做出了最大的努力，使用 16S 扩增子靶向测序来描述属于四个不同科的 35 种蜘蛛物种的肠道微生物群。此外，我们比较了从不同地理位置收集的蜘蛛物种的肠道微生物群组成，包括内共生体丰度。结果表明，存在像不动杆菌（15%）、V7 枝（9%）、沃尔巴克氏体（8%）、假单胞菌（5%）、芽孢杆菌（6%）这样的属。尽管比较分析表明，所有蜘蛛科的肠道细菌组成在群落丰富度和均匀度方面都有相似的模式。与 Salticidae、Tetragnathidae 和 Araneidae 相比，Lycosidae 蜘蛛科的细菌多样性更为多样化。此外，观察到内共生体属，即沃尔巴克氏体和立克次氏体的丰度导致其他细菌分类群的丰度发生变化，并可能导致蜘蛛物种的性改变。此外，基于 PICRUSt2 的预测功能分析表明，蜘蛛物种的肠道微生物群参与了碳水化合物、辅因子和维生素、氨基酸的代谢；有机化合物、脂肪酸、脂质等的生物合成等功能。根据所获得的结果，可以说不同的地点与从自然环境中收集的蜘蛛物种的肠道微生物群的群落组成没有相关性。
