Suh Eunho, Huntley Naomi, van Warmerdam Travis, Spychalla Jamie P, Nejat Najmeh, Rasgon Jason L
Department of Entomology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
Department of Biology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
bioRxiv. 2025 Sep 2:2025.09.01.673577. doi: 10.1101/2025.09.01.673577.
Microbiota play a crucial role in determining the ability for arthropod disease vectors to transmit pathogens. Microbial community structure can be heavily influenced by microbe-microbe interactions, host genetics and environmental factors. Here, we characterize the host population genetic structure, and bacterial and fungal communities in natural populations of the West Nile virus mosquito vector . Mosquitoes were collected and analyzed across the species range of the mosquito in the United States, where we used PoolRADSeq to quantify population genetic structure. Microbial community composition was characterized using bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequencing (V3-V4 region) and fungal ITS sequencing (ITS1 region).
PoolRADSeq identified four broad genetic clusters of mosquito populations, which corresponded to previous clusters identified by microsatellite analysis and RADSeq on individual mosquitoes. Microbiome diversity grouped mosquito populations into three broad clusters, with each cluster distinctively represented by diagnostic abundant bacteria (, or /, respectively). Clustering for fungal taxa was less pronounced. Geographic distance between populations was positively correlated with microbiome community dissimilarity, and multiple environmental factors were significantly correlated with microbial species richness and diversity.
These results suggest that bacterial and fungal communities are geographically structured in . , interact with important environmental factors, and are partially correlated with host genetic structure. As microbiota can affect the ability for mosquitoes to transmit pathogens, understanding the factors underpinning microbiome variation across space and time has important implications for the spread of vector-borne pathogens such as WNV.
微生物群在决定节肢动物疾病传播媒介传播病原体的能力方面起着关键作用。微生物群落结构会受到微生物-微生物相互作用、宿主遗传学和环境因素的严重影响。在此，我们对西尼罗河病毒蚊子媒介自然种群中的宿主种群遗传结构以及细菌和真菌群落进行了特征描述。在美国蚊子的整个物种分布范围内收集并分析了蚊子，我们使用PoolRADSeq来量化种群遗传结构。使用细菌16S rRNA基因测序（V3-V4区域）和真菌ITS测序（ITS1区域）对微生物群落组成进行了特征描述。
PoolRADSeq识别出了蚊子种群的四个广泛遗传簇，这与之前通过对单个蚊子进行微卫星分析和RADSeq所识别的簇相对应。微生物组多样性将蚊子种群分为三个广泛的簇，每个簇分别由诊断性丰富细菌（分别为 、 或 /）独特地代表。真菌类群的聚类不太明显。种群之间的地理距离与微生物群落差异呈正相关，并且多个环境因素与微生物物种丰富度和多样性显著相关。
这些结果表明， 中的细菌和真菌群落具有地理结构，与重要环境因素相互作用，并且与宿主遗传结构部分相关。由于微生物群会影响蚊子传播病原体的能力，了解支撑微生物组时空变化的因素对于西尼罗河病毒等媒介传播病原体的传播具有重要意义。
