Natta Gianluca, Voyron Samuele, Lumini Erica, Laini Alex, Roggero Angela, Fiorito Alessandro, Palestrini Claudia, Rolando Antonio
Department of Life Sciences and Systems Biology (DBIOS), University of Turin, Turin, Italy.
Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection (IPSP) - National Research Council (CNR), Turin, Italy.
Front Insect Sci. 2025 Aug 20;5:1639013. doi: 10.3389/finsc.2025.1639013. eCollection 2025.
Dung beetles (Coleoptera, Scarabaeoidea) support several ecological processes and services making them important ecosystem engineers. The dung beetle gut microbiota is involved in many of these ecological services. In the present study, we analyzed the microbiota of 90 individuals of three species feeding on different dung types. Our aim was to understand whether the species identity affected the microbiota more than the dung ingested and whether this conditioning applied equally to prokaryotes and fungi. We also compared the taxonomic and functional variability of the microorganisms to check for similarities between individuals. Using molecular analyses, we characterized the alpha and beta diversities, core and indicator taxa and taxonomic and functional composition of the gut microbiota. Alpha diversity analyses revealed diet, species and sex to influence diversity parameters but no clear differences in the diversity patterns for prokaryotes vs fungi. Conversely, all other analyses consistently showed differences in the composition patterns for prokaryotes vs fungi, with prokaryotes mostly varying according to host species identity and fungi varying according to dung type. This suggests that most prokaryotes in the dung beetle microbiota are definitive symbionts, whereas many fungi are transient symbionts. We found evidence of great similarity in the functional composition of the microbiota despite strong taxonomic dissimilarities. The results emphasize the need to consider both the prokaryotic and fungal components of the microbiota. They also suggest microbial composition analyses to be preferable to alpha diversity analyses for identifying patterns of variation that depend on phylogeny and diet.
蜣螂（鞘翅目，金龟总科）支持多种生态过程和服务，使其成为重要的生态系统工程师。蜣螂肠道微生物群参与了许多这些生态服务。在本研究中，我们分析了以不同粪便类型为食的三个物种的90个个体的微生物群。我们的目的是了解物种身份对微生物群的影响是否大于摄入的粪便，以及这种影响是否同样适用于原核生物和真菌。我们还比较了微生物的分类学和功能变异性，以检查个体之间的相似性。通过分子分析，我们对肠道微生物群的α和β多样性、核心和指示分类群以及分类学和功能组成进行了表征。α多样性分析表明，饮食、物种和性别会影响多样性参数，但原核生物和真菌的多样性模式没有明显差异。相反，所有其他分析一致表明原核生物和真菌的组成模式存在差异，原核生物大多根据宿主物种身份而变化，真菌则根据粪便类型而变化。这表明蜣螂微生物群中的大多数原核生物是确定性共生体，而许多真菌是临时性共生体。我们发现，尽管分类学上存在很大差异，但微生物群的功能组成却有很大的相似性。结果强调了需要同时考虑微生物群的原核生物和真菌成分。它们还表明，对于识别依赖于系统发育和饮食的变异模式，微生物组成分析比α多样性分析更可取。
