Age polyethism drives community structure of the bacterial gut microbiota in the fungus-cultivating termite Odontotermes formosanus
Summary Fungus‐cultivating termites (Macrotermitinae) possess an elaborate strategy of lignocellulose digestion. It involves a lignocellulose‐degrading fungal symbiont (genus Termitomyces), a diverse gut microbiota and a characteristic labour division in food processing. In this study, using pyrotag...
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| Published in | Environmental microbiology Vol. 18; no. 5; pp. 1440 - 1451 |
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| Main Authors | , , , , , , , , , |
| Format | Journal Article |
| Language | English |
| Published |
England
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
01.05.2016
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc |
| Subjects | |
| Online Access | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Summary
Fungus‐cultivating termites (Macrotermitinae) possess an elaborate strategy of lignocellulose digestion. It involves a lignocellulose‐degrading fungal symbiont (genus Termitomyces), a diverse gut microbiota and a characteristic labour division in food processing. In this study, using pyrotag sequencing and electron microscopy, we analysed the bacterial microbiota in the hindgut of Odontotermes formosanus and its fungus comb to investigate the spatial organization, establishment and temporal succession of the bacterial communities colonizing specific microhabitats. Our results document strong differences between the communities at the hindgut epithelium and the luminal fluid of newly moulted, young and old worker termites. The differences in community structure were consistent with the density, morphology and spatial distribution of bacterial cells and the pools of microbial metabolites in the hindgut compartment, underlining that both gut development and the age‐specific changes in diet affect the composition and functional role of their gut microbiota. These findings provide strong support for the concept that changes in diet and gut environment are important determinants of community structure because they create new niches for microbial symbionts. |
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| Bibliography: | Fig. S1. Scanning and transmission electron micrograph of midgut epithelium and midgut lumen from (A) young workers and (B) old workers of Odontotermes formosanus. Fig. S2. Interactive version of the ternary plot of the distribution of genus-level taxa across the different age groups of Odontotermes formosanus workers and between the three habitats investigated in this study (Fig. 5). In the interactive version of the figure, the name of the genus-level taxon is shown when the mouse is placed over the respective data circles (tested with current versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome). Table S1. Characteristics of amplicon libraries of bacterial 16S rRNA genes in different hindgut fractions and the fungus comb of Odontotermes formosanus, comparing workers of different age with fresh and mature combs. Table S2. Classification success for pyrotag reads at different taxonomic levels using different reference databases. Table S3. Relative read abundance in the pyrotag libraries of the bacterial communities in the different hindgut fractions of newly moulted workers, young workers and old workers as well as in the fungus comb. This interactive table allows the classification results at different taxonomic levels to be shown. Table S4. Important genus-level groups in the hindgut communities of Odontotermes formosanus and their fungus combs. Natural Science Foundation of China - No. 31170611; No. 31500528 ark:/67375/WNG-F5DC15F5-T istex:46F00EB2CE2E34F3E27E0249FE174E36349875C5 Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation - No. Z3100211 ArticleID:EMI13046 ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
| ISSN: | 1462-2912 1462-2920 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/1462-2920.13046 |