The Impact of Environmental Habitats and Diets on the Gut Microbiota Diversity of True Bugs (Hemiptera: Heteroptera)
Guannan Li,
Jingjing Sun,
Yujie Meng,
Chengfeng Yang,
Zhuo Chen,
Yunfei Wu,
Li Tian,
Fan Song,
Wanzhi Cai,
Xue Zhang,
Hu Li
Affiliations
Guannan Li
Department of Entomology and MOA Key Lab of Pest Monitoring and Green Management, College of Plant Protection, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China
Jingjing Sun
Department of Entomology and MOA Key Lab of Pest Monitoring and Green Management, College of Plant Protection, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China
Yujie Meng
College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China
Chengfeng Yang
Department of Entomology and MOA Key Lab of Pest Monitoring and Green Management, College of Plant Protection, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China
Zhuo Chen
Department of Entomology and MOA Key Lab of Pest Monitoring and Green Management, College of Plant Protection, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China
Yunfei Wu
Department of Entomology and MOA Key Lab of Pest Monitoring and Green Management, College of Plant Protection, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China
Li Tian
Department of Entomology and MOA Key Lab of Pest Monitoring and Green Management, College of Plant Protection, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China
Fan Song
Department of Entomology and MOA Key Lab of Pest Monitoring and Green Management, College of Plant Protection, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China
Wanzhi Cai
Department of Entomology and MOA Key Lab of Pest Monitoring and Green Management, College of Plant Protection, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China
Xue Zhang
Department of Entomology and MOA Key Lab of Pest Monitoring and Green Management, College of Plant Protection, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China
Hu Li
Department of Entomology and MOA Key Lab of Pest Monitoring and Green Management, College of Plant Protection, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China
Insects are generally associated with gut bacterial communities that benefit the hosts with respect to diet digestion, limiting resource supplementation, pathogen defense, and ecological niche expansion. Heteroptera (true bugs) represent one of the largest and most diverse insect lineages and comprise species consuming different diets and inhabiting various ecological niches, even including underwater. However, the bacterial symbiotic associations have been characterized for those basically restricted to herbivorous stink bugs of the infraorder Pentatomomorpha. The gut microbiota associated with the megadiverse heteropteran lineages and the implications of ecological and diet variance remain largely unknown. Here, we conducted a bacterial 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing of the gut microbiota across 30 species of true bugs representative of different ecological niches and diets. It was revealed that Proteobacteria and Firmicute were the predominant bacterial phyla. Environmental habitats and diets synergistically contributed to the diversity of the gut bacterial community of true bugs. True bugs living in aquatic environments harbored multiple bacterial taxa that were not present in their terrestrial counterparts. Carnivorous true bugs possessed distinct gut microbiota compared to phytophagous species. Particularly, assassin bugs of the family Reduviidae possessed a characterized gut microbiota predominantly composed of one Enterococcus with different Proteobacteria, implying a specific association between the gut bacteria and host. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of the comprehensive surveillance of gut microbiota association with true bugs for understanding the molecular mechanisms underpinning insect–bacteria symbiosis.
