Comparative Analysis of the Gut Bacterial Community of Four Anastrepha Fruit Flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) Based on Pyrosequencing

Abstract

Fruit flies are the most economically important group of phytophagous flies worldwide. Whereas the ecological role of bacteria associated with tephritid fruit fly species of the genera Bactrocera and Ceratitis has been demonstrated, the diversity of the bacterial community in Anastrepha has been poorly characterized. This study represents the first comprehensive analysis of the bacterial community in the gut of larvae and adults of Anastrepha ludens, A. obliqua, A. serpentina, and A. striata using 454 pyrosequencing. A total of four phyla, seven classes, 11 families, and 27 bacterial genera were identified. Proteobacteria was the most represented phylum, followed by Firmicutes, Actinobacteria, and Deinococcus-Thermus. The genera Citrobacter, Enterobacter, Escherichia, Klebsiella, and Raoultella were dominant in all samples analyzed. In general, the bacterial community diversity in adult flies was higher in species with a broader diet breadth than species with a restricted number of hosts, whereas it was also higher in adults versus larvae. Differences in bacterial communities in adults might be determined by the number of fruit species infested. Lastly, the predictive functional profile analysis suggested that community members may participate in metabolic pathways related to membrane transport and metabolism of carbohydrates, amino acids, cofactors, and lipids. These results provide the basis for the study of unexplored functional roles of bacteria in this insect group.

Artificial Larval Diet Mediates the Microbiome of Queensland Fruit Fly

“…Artificial larval diet strongly modulated the microbial community structure (beta diversity) across all developmental stages, but did not affect total biodiversity (as assessed by alpha diversity metrics: species richness and Shannon's diversity index). Previously, the bacterial phyla Proteobacteria and Firmicutes have commonly been reported in Qfly larvae and adults in domesticated colonies reared on a carrot diet (Deutscher et al, 2018;Majumder et al, 2019;Woruba et al, 2019), and in other fruit flies including Bactrocera neohumeralis, Bactrocera jarvisi, Bactrocera cacuminata, Bactrocera oleae, Zeugodacus tau, A. ludens, Anastrepha obliqua, Anastrepha serpentina, Anastrepha striata, and C. capitata (Morrow et al, 2015;Malacrinò et al, 2018;Ventura et al, 2018;Koskinioti et al, 2020;Noman et al, 2020). Our results are consistent with these previous findings.…”

“…Diet is a key factor influencing the gut microbiome of fruit flies including Bactrocera, Ceratitis, and Anastrepha (Malacrinò et al, 2018;Ventura et al, 2018;Andongma et al, 2019;Majumder et al, 2019). Diet effects on the microbiome are also commonplace in other insects, for example: cotton bollworm (Helicoverpa armigera) (Xiang et al, 2006), the ground dwelling beetle (Coleoptera) (Kudo et al, 2019), gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar) (Broderick et al, 2004) and Drosophila (Colman et al, 2012).…”

“…Increasing our knowledge of these relationships may identify ways to enhance the quality of artificial diets, with the goal of improving performance in laboratory or mass-reared insects. To date, only a handful of studies have analyzed the microbiome of tephritid fruit flies reared on artificial diet (Behar et al, 2008b;Andongma et al, 2015;Morrow et al, 2015;Yong et al, 2017a;Deutscher et al, 2018;Malacrinò et al, 2018;Ventura et al, 2018;Woruba et al, 2019, Koskinioti et al, 2020. To our knowledge, however, there are no studies directly comparing the effect of different artificial larval diets on the gut bacterial community of tephritid fruit flies across the developmental stages of larvae, pupae and adult.…”

Leishmania, microbiota and sand fly immunity

“…These are known to have an impact on L. longipalpis or other insects immunity (Boulanger et al , 2004 ; Telleria et al , 2013 ; Booth et al , 2015 ; Heerman et al , 2015 ; Husseneder et al , 2017 ; Keita et al , 2017 ). Other identified genera including Acinetobacter , Burkolderia , Citrobacter , Enterobacter , Pseudomonas and Ralstonia are commonly associated with Phlebotomus , mosquitoes, other insects or plants (Warburg, 1991 ; Dillon et al , 1996 ; Eilmus and Heil, 2009 ; Akhoundi et al , 2012 ; Maleki-Ravasan et al , 2015 ; Lalithambika and Vani, 2016 ; Sun et al , 2016 ; Husseneder et al , 2017 ; Takeshita and Kikuchi, 2017 ; Thapa et al , 2017 ; Osimani et al , 2018 ; Song et al , 2018 ; Ventura et al , 2018 ). Interestingly, Caulobacter genus that comprises environmental associated microbes was found in L. longipalpis as well as in glassy-winged sharpshooter Homalodisca vitripennis (Rogers and Backus, 2014 ) but very little is known about this bacterium.…”

Intestinal probiotics restore the ecological fitness decline of Bactrocera dorsalis by irradiation

“…Earlier, gut symbiotic bacteria community of Oriental fruit fly has been investigated; Enterobacteriaceae were the predominant families in different populations from laboratory reared and field collected samples (Wang, Jin, & Zhang, 2011;Wang, Jin, et al, 2014). The predominance of Enterobacteriaceae has also been observed in B. minax (Wang, Yao, Zheng, & Zhang, 2014), C. capitata (Behar, Yuval, & Jurkevitch, 2005) and several species of the genera Anastrepha (Ventura, Briones-Roblero, Hernández, Rivera-Orduña, & Zúñiga, 2018). In C. capitata, the core bacteria Enterobacteriaceae can help the host in nitrogen fixation and hydrolyse pectin substances in plants (Behar, Yuval, & Jurkevitch, 2008;Behar et al, 2005).…”