Both host and diet shape bacterial communities of predatory mites

Abstract

Microbial communities, derived from food, ambient, and inner, can affect host ecological adaption and evolution. Comparing with most phytophagous arthropods, predators may have more opportunities to develop specific microbiota depending on the level of prey specialization. To explore how diet sources affect host microbial communities and vary across predator species, we considered 3 types of predators from Phytoseiidae (Acari: Mesostigmata): polyphagous (Amblyseius orientalis Ehara, Neoseiulus barkeri Hughes, and Amblyseius swirskii Athias‐Henrio), oligophagous (Neoseiulus californicus McGregor), and monophagous (Phytoseiulus persimilis Athias‐Henriot) predatory mites. The polyphagous species were fed on 2 types of diets, natural prey and alternative prey. By using 16S rRNA sequencing, we found that diet was the main source of microbiota in predatory mites, while there was no clear pattern affected by prey specialization. Among 3 polyphagous predators, host species had a larger impact than prey on microbial composition. Unlike A. orientalis or N. barkeri which showed consistency in their microbiota, prey switching significantly affected β‐diversity of bacterial composition in A. swirskii, with 56% of the microbial alteration. In short, our results confirmed the substantial influence of diet on host microbial construction in predatory species, and highlighted species differences in shaping the microbiota which are not necessarily related to prey specialization.

Distinct gut microbial communities and functional predictions in divergent ophiuroid species: host differentiation, ecological niches, and adaptation to cold-water habitats

“…The two species with similar feeding types are both carnivorous and were dominant species in their respective benthic habitats, so it was speculated that they have the same dietary niche. Dietary niches, as a primary influence, impact the gut microbiota by providing specific nutrients and substrates that select certain microbial species, thus affecting overall community structure ( 86 ), as observed in the cichlid species complex ( 86 , 87 ). Our previous studies revealed significant differences in gut microbes among ophiuroids with varying feeding types, while the gut microbes of two carnivorous ophiuroids ( Stegophiura sladeni and O. sarsii vadicola ) were similar ( 28 ).…”

Expression profiling of juvenile hormone and ecdysteroid biosynthesis genes during the development and reproduction of Phytoseiulus persimilis

“…qPCR using SYBR Mixture (with ROX) in FQD-96A with the following program: initial denaturation at 95 ℃ for 10 min, followed by 40 cycles at 95 ℃ for 20 s, 60 ℃ for 20 s and 72 ℃ for 30 s. The expression quantity of the gene was calculated using 2 −ΔΔCT method (Livak and Schmittgen 2001). Each sample had three technical replicates and β-actin gene was used as reference gene (Bi et al 2019;Yan et al 2024).…”