Jackson Raphaella, Patapiou Patapios A, Golding Gemma, Helanterä Heikki, Economou Chloe K, Chapuisat Michel, Henry Lee M
School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, United Kingdom.
Department of Pathobiology and Population Sciences, Royal Veterinary College, Hatfield, United Kingdom.
Front Microbiol. 2023 May 5;14:1044286. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1044286. eCollection 2023.
Insects share intimate relationships with microbes that play important roles in their biology. Yet our understanding of how host-bound microbial communities assemble and perpetuate over evolutionary time is limited. Ants host a wide range of microbes with diverse functions and are an emerging model for studying the evolution of insect microbiomes. Here, we ask whether phylogenetically related ant species have formed distinct and stable microbiomes.
To answer this question, we investigated the microbial communities associated with queens of 14 species from five clades, using deep coverage 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing.
We reveal that species and clades harbor highly defined microbial communities that are dominated by four bacteria genera: , , and . Our analysis reveals that the composition of microbiomes mirrors the phylogeny of the host, i.e., phylosymbiosis, in that related hosts harbor more similar microbial communities. In addition, we find there are significant correlations between microbe co-occurrences.
Our results demonstrate ants carry microbial communities that recapitulate the phylogeny of their hosts. Our data suggests that the co-occurrence of different bacteria genera may at least in part be due to synergistic and antagonistic interactions between microbes. Additional factors potentially contributing to the phylosymbiotic signal are discussed, including host phylogenetic relatedness, host-microbe genetic compatibility, modes of transmission, and similarities in host ecologies (e.g., diets). Overall, our results support the growing body of evidence that microbial community composition closely depends on the phylogeny of their hosts, despite bacteria having diverse modes of transmission and localization within the host.
昆虫与微生物有着密切的关系，这些微生物在它们的生物学中发挥着重要作用。然而，我们对宿主相关微生物群落如何在进化时间内组装和延续的理解是有限的。蚂蚁宿主着具有多种功能的广泛微生物，并且是研究昆虫微生物组进化的新兴模型。在这里，我们探讨系统发育相关的蚂蚁物种是否形成了独特且稳定的微生物组。
为了回答这个问题，我们使用深度覆盖的16S rRNA扩增子测序，研究了来自五个进化枝的14个物种蚁后的相关微生物群落。
我们发现物种和进化枝拥有高度明确的微生物群落，这些群落由四个细菌属主导： 、 、 和 。我们的分析表明， 微生物组的组成反映了宿主的系统发育，即系统共生，也就是说相关宿主拥有更相似的微生物群落。此外，我们发现微生物共现之间存在显著相关性。
我们的结果表明 蚂蚁携带的微生物群落概括了其宿主的系统发育。我们的数据表明，不同细菌属的共现可能至少部分是由于微生物之间的协同和拮抗相互作用。还讨论了可能导致系统共生信号的其他因素，包括宿主系统发育相关性、宿主 - 微生物遗传相容性、传播方式以及宿主生态（如饮食）的相似性。总体而言，我们的结果支持了越来越多的证据，即微生物群落组成密切依赖于其宿主的系统发育，尽管细菌在宿主内具有多种传播方式和定位。
