Bacterial communities of the cotton aphid Aphis gossypii associated with Bt cotton in northern China

Abstract

Aphids are infected with a wide variety of endosymbionts that can confer ecologically relevant traits. However, the bacterial communities of most aphid species are still poorly characterized. This study investigated the bacterial diversity of the cotton aphid Aphis gossypii associated with Bt cotton in northern China by targeting the V4 region of the 16S rDNA using the Illumina MiSeq platform. Our sequencing data revealed that bacterial communities of A. gossypii were generally dominated by the primary symbiont Buchnera, together with the facultative symbionts Arsenophonus and Hamiltonella. To our knowledge, this is the first report documenting the facultative symbiont Hamiltonella in A. gossypii. Moreover, the bacterial community structure was similar within aphids from the same province, but distinct among those from different provinces. The taxonomic diversity of the bacterial community is greater in Hebei Province compared with in samples from Henan and Shandong Provinces. The selection pressure exerted by the different geographical locations could explain the differences found among the various provinces. These findings broaden our understanding of the interactions among aphids, endosymbionts and their environments, and provide clues to develop potential biocontrol techniques against this cotton aphid.

Bacterial communities in natural versus pesticide‐treated Aphis gossypii populations in North China

“…Eight bacterial groups, including Arsenophonus , Serratia , Rickettsia , and Wolbachia were cocolonized on Colocasia esculenta and Alpinia purpurata across the four Hawaiian Islands (Jones, Bressan, Greenwell, & Fierer, ). In this study, the relative abundances of 22 identified genera were more than 0.1%, including the three most abundant bacterial genera Arsenophonus , Hamiltonella and Acinetobacter and the three genera with low abundance ( Pseudomonas , Burkholderia , Stenotrophomonas ) that have been reported in A. gossypii (Jones et al., ; Najar‐Rodriguez et al., ; Zhao et al., ). None of the aphids surveyed were infected with the main endosymbiotic types ( Serratia symbiotica , Regiella insecticola , Rickettsia , Spiroplasma ) that were previously reported for other aphid species (Russell, Latorre, Sabater‐Munoz, Moya, & Moran, ).…”

“…TIANamp Genomic DNA Kits (TIANGEN Biotech (Beijing) LTD., China) were used for DNA extractions. The protocol that was followed has been previously reported (Zhao et al., ). The quantity and quality of the DNA were measured with a NanoDrop 2000C spectrophotometer (Thermo Scientific, USA).…”

“…The V4 region of the 16S rDNA were amplified using the 515F/806R primer; amplicon generation PCR products, quantification and qualification, PCR products mixing and purification, library preparation, and sequencing were done as previously reported (Zhao et al., ). Finally, the library was sequenced on an Illumina HiSeq2500 platform and 250 bp paired‐end reads were generated at Novogene Bioinformatics Technology (Beijing, China).…”

“…Paired‐end reads were merged using FLASH (V1.2.7, http://ccb.jhu.edu/software/FLASH/) (Magoc & Salzberg, ). Quality filtering on the raw tags and sequence analyses were the same as previously reported (Zhao et al., ). Sequences with ≥97% similarity were assigned to the same OTUs.…”

“…edu/software/FLASH/) (Magoc & Salzberg, 2011). Quality filtering on the raw tags and sequence analyses were the same as previously reported (Zhao et al, 2016). Sequences with ≥97% similarity were as-…”