Bacterial Communities Are Less Diverse in a Strepsipteran Endoparasitoid than in Its Fruit Fly Hosts and Dominated by Wolbachia.

ABSTRACT: Microbiomes play vital roles in insect fitness and health and can be influenced by interactions between insects and their parasites. Many studies investigate the microbiome of free-living insects, whereas microbiomes of endoparasitoids and their interactions with parasitised insects are less explored. Due to their development in the constrained environment within a host, endoparasitoids are expected to have less diverse yet distinct microbiomes. We used high-throughput 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing to characterise the bacterial communities of Dipterophagus daci (Strepsiptera) and seven of its tephritid fruit fly host species. Bacterial communities of D. daci were less diverse and contained fewer taxa relative to the bacterial communities of the tephritid hosts. The strepsipteran's micr

SUBMITTER: Towett-Kirui S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10497669 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature