Gut Bacterial Communities in the Ground Beetle Carabus convexus

• Published in: Insects (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 15; no. 8; p. 612
• Main Authors: Magura, Tibor, Mizser, Szabolcs, Horváth, Roland, Tóth, Mária, Kozma, Ferenc Sándor, Kádas, János, Lövei, Gábor L
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 14.08.2024; MDPI
• Subjects: Bacteria; Beetles; Biological activity; Biological effects; carabid; Carabidae; Carabus; Carbohydrates; Competitiveness; Digestive system; digestive tract; Dissection; Environmental aspects; Ethanol; Females; Food consumption; Food plants; Gastrointestinal tract; Gene sequencing; Genera; Genetic aspects; Identification and classification; Insects; Intestinal microflora; intestinal tract; Intestine; Life history; Males; microbiome; Microbiomes; Microbiota (Symbiotic organisms); Microorganisms; mutualism; Next-generation sequencing; Physiological aspects; Population studies; rRNA 16S; Species; Symbionts; Taxonomy; Testing; Vertebrates; Hungary; United States > US; Germany; predators; carabid; microorganisms; symbionts; operational taxonomic units; digestive tract; intestinal tract; microbiome; mutualism
• ISSN: 2075-4450; 2075-4450
• DOI: 10.3390/insects15080612

Biological interactions, including symbiotic ones, have vital roles in ecological and evolutionary processes. Microbial symbionts in the intestinal tracts, known as the gut microbiome, are especially important because they can fundamentally influence the life history, fitness, and competitiveness of their hosts. Studies on the gut-resident microorganisms of wild animals focus mainly on vertebrates, and studies on species-rich invertebrate taxa, such as ground beetles, are sparse. In fact, even among the species-rich genus , only the gut microbiome of two Asian species was studied, while results on European species are completely missing. Here, we investigated the gut bacterial microbiome of a widespread European species, targeting the V3 and V4 regions of the 16S ribosomal RNA genes by next-generation high-throughput sequencing. We identified 1138 different operational taxonomic units assigned to 21 bacterial phyla, 90 families, and 197 genera. Members of the carbohydrate-degrading Prevotellaceae family, previously not detected in ground beetles, were the most abundant in the gut microbiome of the carnivorous . Presumably, individuals from the studied wild populations also consume plant materials, especially fruits, and these carbohydrate-degrading bacterial symbionts can facilitate both the consumption and the digestion of these supplementary foods.