Insects and microbes have developed complex symbiotic relationships that
evolutively and ecologically play beneficial roles for both, the symbiont and the host. In most
Hemiptera insects, bacterial symbionts offer mainly nutritional, defense and reproductive roles
and have promoted the adaptive radiation of several hemipteran phytophagous lineages. The
tropical plant bug Monalonion velezangeli (Hemiptera: Miridae) is a polyphagous herbivore
considered an important insect pest for several economically-relevant tropical crops; however,
information about the composition of its bacterial microbiota was missing. In this study, we
describe the diversity and structure of the bacterial microbiota in the nymph and adult life stages
of M. velezangeli using Illumina high-throughput sequencing of 16S ribosomal RNA gene
amplicons (meta-barcoding). We found that both insect life stages share a similar microbiota in
terms of bacterial diversity and community structure. The intracellular symbiont Wolbachia
(~92%) dominated the overall microbiome composition in these life stages, and along with
bacteria genera Romboutsia, Ignavibacterium, Clostridium, Allobaculum, Paracoccus,
Methylobacterium, Faecalibacterium, Collinsella, Rothia, Sphingomonas and other 4
undetermined genera, were found as members of the core microbiota. Based on PCR screening
and DNA sequencing of wsp gene, Wolbachia infection was confirmed in almost 80% of
samples, represented by two different isolates or strains within the supergroup B. This data
opens new questions and avenues to better understand the contribution of symbiotic bacteria in
the biological performance of this insect pest and provide bases to explore other insect control
methods.