During the early-life period, the hatchlings of red-eared slider turtles (Trachemys scripta elegans) rely on their own post-hatching internal yolk for several days before beginning to feed. The gut microbiome is critical for the adaptation of organisms to new environments, but, to date, how the microbiome taxa are assembled during early life of the turtle is unknown. In this study, the intestinal microbiome of red-eared slider hatchlings (fed on commercial particle food) was systematically analyzed at four different growth stages (0 d, 10 d, 20 d, 30 d) by a high-throughput sequencing approach. Results showed that the dominant phyla were Firmicutes (58.23%) and Proteobacteria (41.42%) at 0-day, Firmicutes (92.94%) at 10-day, Firmicutes (67.08%) and Bacteroidetes (27.17%) at 20-day, and Firmicutes (56.46%), Bacteroidetes (22.55%) and Proteobacteria (20.66%) at 30-day post-hatching. Members of the Bacteroidaceae family were absent in 0-day and 10-day turtles, but dominated in 20-day and 30-day turtles. The abundance of Clostridium also showed the highest value in 10-day turtles. The richness of the intestinal microbiomes was lower at 0-day and 30-day than that at 10-day and 20-day, while the diversity was higher at 10-day and 30-day than that at 0-day and 20-day. The results endowed the turtles with an ability to enhance their tolerance to the environment.

: The butterfly tribe Aeromachini Tutt, 1906 is a large group of skippers. In this study, a total of 10 genera and 45 species of putative members of this tribe, which represent most of the generic diversity and nearly all the species diversity of the group in China, were sequenced for two mitochondrial genes and three nuclear genes (2093 bp). The combined dataset was analyzed with maximum likelihood inference using IQtree. We found strong support for monophyly of Aeromachini from China and support for the most recent accepted species in the tribe. Two paraphyletic genera within Aeromachini are presented and discussed. The divergence time estimates with BEAST and ancestral-area reconstructions with RASP provide a detailed description about the historical biogeography of the Aeromachini from China. The tribe very likely originated from the Hengduan Mountains in the late Ecocene and expanded to the Himalaya Mountains and Central China Regions. A dispersal-vicariance analysis suggests that dispersal events have played essential roles in the distribution of extant species, and geological and climatic changes have been important factors driving current distribution patterns.

We characterized the gut microbial composition and relative abundance of gut bacteria in the larvae and adults of Pieris canidia by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The gut microbiota structure was similar across the life stages and sexes. The comparative functional analysis on P. canidia bacterial communities with PICRUSt showed the enrichment of several pathways including those for energy metabolism, immune system, digestive system, xenobiotics biodegradation, transport, cell growth and death. The parameters often used as a proxy of insect fitness (development time, pupation rate, emergence rate, adult survival rate and weight of 5th instars larvae) showed a significant difference between treatment group and untreated group and point to potential fitness advantages with the gut microbiomes in P. canidia. These data provide an overall view of the bacterial community across the life stages and sexes in P. canidia.

Wolbachia is arguably one of the most ubiquitous heritable symbionts among insects and understanding its transmission dynamics is crucial for understanding why it is so common. While previous research has studied the transmission pathways of Wolbachia in several insect lineages including Lepidoptera, this study takes advantage of data collected from the lepidopteran tribe Aeromachini in an effort to assess patterns of transmission. Twenty-one of the 46 species of Aeromachini species were infected with Wolbachia. Overall, 25% (31/125) of Aeromachini specimens tested were Wolbachia positive. All Wolbachia strains were species specific except for the wJho strain which appeared to be shared by three host species with a sympatric distribution based on a co-phylogenetic comparison between Wolbachia and the Aeromachini species. Two tests of phylogenetic congruence did not find any evidence for cospeciation between Wolbachia strains and their butterfly hosts. The co-phylogenetic comparison, divergence time estimation and Wolbachia recombination analysis revealed that Wolbachia acquisition in Aeromachini appears to have mainly occurred mainly through horizontal transmission rather than codivergence.

The maternally inherited obligate intracellular bacteria Wolbachia infects the reproductive tissues of a wide range of arthropods and affects host reproduction. Wolbachia is a credible biocontrol agent for reducing the impact of diseases associated with arthropod vectors. Paederus fuscipes is a small staphylinid beetle that causes dermatitis linearis and conjunctivitis in humans when they come into contact with skin. Wolbachia occur in this beetle, but their relatedness to other Wolbachia, their infection dynamics, and their potential host effects remain unknown. In this study, we report the phylogenetic position and density dynamics of Wolbachia in P. fuscipes. The phylogeny of Wolbachia based on an analysis of MLST genotyping showed that the bacteria from P. fuscipes belong to supergroup B. Quantitative PCR indicated that the infection density in adults was higher than in any other life stage (egg, larva or pupa), and that reproductive tissue in adults had the highest infection densities, with similar densities in the sexes. These findings provide a starting point for understanding the Wolbachia infection dynamics in P. fuscipes, and interactions with other components of the microbiota.