Reduced Environmental Microbial Diversity on the Cuticle and in the Galleries of a Subterranean Termite Compared to Surrounding Soil

Termite diet rather than geographical origin determines the microbiome composition and functional genetic structure of nests from South American and African representatives, as revealed by a multiomics approach

“…Authors have reported a recruitment from surrounding soil. Similar results regarding Streptomyces were reported in nests of Reticulitermes flavipes (Aguero et al, 2021). Another group of bacteria notably described in literature is that of Rhizobiales , Gram-negative bacteria belonging to the Alphaproteobacterial class, and with many members capable of fixing nitrogen (Beeckmans and Xie, 2015) and associated with many plants, lichens, and mosses (Erlacher et al, 2015).…”

“…5) indicated that certain genera were representative of specific samples when compared together. Streptomyces was associated with Nasutitermes, an observation that is in agreement with the study of Chouvenc (2018), andAguero (2021), and could be indicative of a defensive role of this bacterial order in the termite nest. Neocapritermes with Beta-proteobacteria, which have been described as characteristic cellulolytic bacteria in acidic forest soils in temperate areas (Štursová et al, 2012), and belonging to this class the genera Burkholderia and Collimonas have been characterized as capable of carrying out mineral-wheathering (Lepleux et al, 2012).…”

Natural variation in colony inbreeding does not influence susceptibility to a fungal pathogen in a termite

“…Individual-level defenses also include the production of defensive compounds (Brown, 1968;Bulmer & Crozier, 2004Hölldobler & Engel-Siegel, 1984;Ortius-Lechner et al, 2000;Rosengaus et al, 2013;Turillazzi et al, 2006) and pathogen avoidance (Epsky & Capinera, 1988;Marikovsky, 1962;Yanagawa et al, 2012). In addition, social insects display collective immune responses based on interactions between at least two individuals, such as allogrooming (Chouvenc et al 2009a, Drees et al, 1992Hughes et al, 2002;Liu, Wang, et al, 2019;Oi & Pereira, 1993;Peng et al, 1987;Wilson-Rich et al, 2007;Yanagawa & Shimizu, 2007), the transfer of antimicrobial substances through trophallaxis , their deposition on nest chambers and galleries (Aguero et al, 2021;Chouvenc et al 2013;, and nest hygiene (Ballari et al, 2007;Bot et al, 2001;Hart & Ratnieks, 2002;Howard & Tschinkel, 1976;Julian & Cahan, 1999;Siebeneicher et al, 1992;Sun & Zhou, 2013;Trumbo et al, 1997). Thus, immunity of social insects relies on complex interactions between individual and collective-level responses.…”

Short and long-term costs of inbreeding in the lifelong-partnership in a termite

“…For the fungal community, ITS was amplified using the primers CS1-ITS3 and CS2-ITS4 with Fluidigm CS1 and CS2 universal oligomers added to their 5′- end 104 . PCR protocols are provided in Supplementary Methods 105 . Pooled amplicons were loaded onto an Illumina MiSeq Standard v2 flow cell and sequenced in a 2 × 250bp paired-end format using a MiSeq.v2.500 cycles reagent cartridge.…”