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Chilo suppressalis is a major global host-specific pest of rice and water oat crops, having caused severe yield damage and great economic loss. The pest occasionally feeds on other plants, preventing them from completing a full life cycle. Dietary differences may shape the gut microbiota of the pest and may further influence its performance. In order to test this hypothesis, an assembly of the gut bacterial community of C. suppressalis larvae reared on rice, water oat, corn, and an artificial diet were investigated using an amplicon-based next-generation sequencing approach. The larval body size and feeding rate on each diet type were analyzed in parallel. We found that the size and feeding rate of C. suppressalis varied among the different dietary regimes, as a low feeding rate was found for rice and corn diets, whereas rice-fed larvae had the biggest body size and corn-fed larvae had the lowest body size. Further high-throughput sequencing results showed that the artificial-diet-fed larvae had the lowest bacterial diversity among all the samples, and the corn-fed larvae presented the most diversified microbial community. Further analysis revealed that the bacterial genera Enterococcus, Sphingobacterium, Klebsiella, Gluconobacter, Serratia, and Lactococcus possessed high abundance in C. suppressalis larvae, and the varied abundances contributed to the differences in community structure. The microbial function classification suggested that metabolic function categories significantly increased while the larvae were feeding on their preferred diet (rice and water oat) and decreased when on an artificial diet. This study expands our understanding of the microbe–insect interaction of C. suppressalis larvae in response to changes in diet, and is an essential step towards the future development of potential microbial-based pest management strategies.

Chilo suppressalis is a major global host-specific pest of rice and water oat crops, having caused a severe yield damage and great economic loss. The pest occasionally fed on other plants, which cannot enable it complete a full life cycle. The dietary differences may shape gut microbiota of the pest and further influence its performance. To test such hypothesis, the assembly of gut bacterial community of C. suppressalis larvae reared on rice, water oat, corn, and an artificial diet were investigated using an amplicon-based next-generation sequencing approach. The larval body size and feeding rate on each diet type were analyzed in parallel. We found that C. suppressalis sizes and feeding rate varied among the different dietary regimes, as a low feeding rate was found on rice and corn diets, while the rice fed larvae has the biggest body size and the lowest body size in corn-fed larvae. Further high-throughput sequencing results showed the artificial diet fed larvae have the lowest bacterial diversity among all samples, and the corn-fed larvae presented the most diversified microbial community. Further analysis revealed the bacterial genera Enterococcus, Sphingobacterium, Klebsiella, Gluconobacter, Serratia, and Lactococcus possessed high abundance in C. suppressalis larvae, and the varied abundances contributed to the difference of community structure. The microbial function classification suggested that metabolic function categories were significantly increased while feeding on preferred diet (rice and water oat) and decreased in the case of artificial diet. This study expands our understanding of the microbe-insect interaction of C. suppressalis larvae in response to diet change and is an essential step towards future development of potential microbial based pest management.