Bacterial communities in carnivorous pitcher plants colonize and persist in inquiline mosquitoes.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The leaves of carnivorous pitcher plants harbor diverse communities of inquiline species, including bacteria and larvae of the pitcher plant mosquito (Wyeomyia smithii), which aid the plant by processing captured prey. Despite the growing appreciation for this microecosystem as a tractable model in which to study food web dynamics and the moniker of W. smithii as a 'keystone predator', very little is known about microbiota acquisition and assembly in W. smithii mosquitoes or the impacts of W. smithii-microbiota interactions on mosquito and/or plant fitness.

Results

In this study, we used high throughput sequencing of bacterial 16S rRNA gene amplicons to characterize and compare microbiota diversity in field- and laboratory-derived W. smithii larvae. We then conduc

SUBMITTER: Arellano AA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8848819 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature