Core members and differential abundance of chrysomelid microbiota in the life stages of Podontia affinis (Galerucinae) and adult Silana farinosa (Cassidinae, Coleoptera)

The chrysomelid beetles Podontia affinis and Silana farinosa are members of the subfamilies Galerucinae and Cassidinae, respectively. This study, based on 16S rRNA gene-targeted metagenomics sequencing, reports the core members and differential abundance of bacterial communities in the larvae and adult beetles of P. affinis and the adult S. farinosa. Cyanobacteria/Melainabacteria group was the predominant phylum in the larvae of P. affinis, while Proteobacteria was the predominant phylum in adult P. affinis and S. farinosa. The number of Order, Family, Genus and Species OTUs in the adult stage of P. affinis was higher than that in the larval stage. The bacterial species richness of adult P. affinis was significantly higher than that of adult S. farinosa. Betaproteobacteria was the predominant class in adult P. affinis, Cyanobacteria in the larvae of P. affinis and Gammaproteobacteria in S. farinosa. The larvae and adult beetles of P. affinis and adult S. (c) Song S et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.2 Song S et al farinosa had a low number of unique and shared bacterial OTUs (> 5% relative abundance). The differences in the microbiota indicate possible differences in nutrient assimilation, host taxonomy and other stochastic processes. These findings provide new information to our understanding of the bacteria associated with specialist phytophagous chrysomelid beetles and beetles in general.

Automated summary

This study investigated the bacterial communities in the larvae and adult beetles of Podontia affinis and Silana farinosa using metagenomics sequencing. The results revealed that the predominant phylum in P. affinis larvae was Cyanobacteria/Melainabacteria, while it was Proteobacteria in adult P. affinis and S. farinosa. The bacterial species richness of adult P. affinis was significantly higher than that of adult S. farinosa. These findings provide new insights into the bacteria associated with chrysomelid beetles.