Analysis of Ficus hirta Fig Endosymbionts Diversity and Species Composition

Abstract

Endosymbionts living in plants and insects are pervasive. Ficus (Moraceae) has very special inflorescences (which we also call figs) enclosed like an urn, and such inflorescence is usually parasitized by fig wasps. Ficus breeds fig wasp larvae in its figs and adult fig wasps pollinate for Ficus, Ficus and its obligated pollinator formed fig-fig wasp mutualism. Previous studies have found that this confined environment in figs may have provided protection for fig wasps and that this has left some imprints on the genome of fig wasps during the coevolution history of figs and fig wasps. Research on the diversity of both bacteria and fungi in figs are fewer. Our study explored the diversity of endosymbionts in Ficus hirta figs. We utilized high-throughput sequencing and biological database to identify the specific microorganism in figs, then conducted microorganism communities’ diversity analysis and function annotation analysis. As a result, we identified the dominant endosymbionts in figs, mainly some insect internal parasitic bacteria and fungi, plant pathogen, endophytes, and saprotroph. Then we also found bacteria in Ficus hirta figs were more diversified than fungi, and bacteria communities in female figs and functional male figs were different. These findings may give us more insight into the coevolution and interaction among endosymbiont, fig, and fig wasp.

Soil bacterial diversity and community structure of Suaeda glauca vegetation in the Hetao Irrigation District, Inner Mongolia, China

“…Mag-Bind Soil DNA Kit (Omega Bio-tek, Norcross, GA, USA) following the manual ( Liu et al, 2020 ). The extracted DNA were then confirmed by 1% agarose gel electrophoresis and stored at −20°C for further analysis ( Liu et al, 2021 ). The specific bar-coded primer pair 515F (5′-GTGCCAGCMGCCGCGG-3′) and 907R (5′-CCGTCAATTCMTTTRAGTTT-3′) was used to amplify the V3-V4 region of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene.…”

“…The UCLUST consensus taxonomy assigner (UCLUST v1.2.22q) was used to cluster the sequences with 97 % or higher similarity into operational classification units (OTUs) ( Edgar, 2010 ). Based on the Silva database containing bacterial and archaeal 16S ribosomal RNA genes (Release 119), the RDP Classifier (70% confidence threshold) was utilized to comparatively analyze the representative sequences from the OTUs and then annotate the species information for the community at various levels (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species) ( Liu et al, 2021 ). The software and algorithms used in the analyses are included in the QIIME platform.…”

Conservation Value of Gunungan Wayang Kulit Purwa for Science Learning Materials

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