No abstract

• Vespa velutina is an alien hornet of high ecological and economic concern in Europe. • Its gut microbiome has been characterized through meta-genomics. • We investigated the effect of ontogeny, phenotype and similarity with environment. • Fungal and bacterial community's abundance depends on ontogeny and phenotype. • Microbiome characterization is a springboard for management strategies.

Funding sourcesThis work was supported by funds from 'Fondi Ateneo' to S.M. (Silvia Moretti Ricaten; Morinn projects), by funds from the European Community under the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme to D.C. (FNS-Cloud project) and from the European Community under the Joint Programming Initiative a Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life (JPI-HDHL) to C.D.F. (MeatIC project).