Abdominal microbial communities in ants depend on colony membership rather than caste and are linked to colony productivity.

ABSTRACT: Gut bacteria aid their host in digestion and pathogen defense, and bacterial communities that differ in diversity or composition may vary in their ability to do so. Typically, the gut microbiomes of animals living in social groups converge as members share a nest environment and frequently interact. Social insect colonies, however, consist of individuals that differ in age, physiology, and behavior, traits that could affect gut communities or that expose the host to different bacteria, potentially leading to variation in the gut microbiome within colonies. Here we asked whether bacterial communities in the abdomen of Temnothorax nylanderi ants, composed largely of the gut microbiome, differ between different reproductive and behavioral castes. We compared microbiomes of queens, newl

SUBMITTER: Segers FHID 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6912891 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature