Termites Are Associated with External Species-Specific Bacterial Communities.
Patrik Soukup, Tomáš Větrovský, Petr Stiblik, Kateřina Votýpková, Amrita Chakraborty, David Sillam-Dussès, Miroslav Kolařík, Iñaki Odriozola, Nathan Lo, Petr Baldrian, Jan Šobotník, Thomas Bourguignon
Author Information
Patrik Soukup: Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic. ORCID
Tomáš Větrovský: Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic.
Petr Stiblik: Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic. ORCID
Kateřina Votýpková: Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic.
Amrita Chakraborty: Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic.
David Sillam-Dussès: University Sorbonne Paris Nord, Laboratory of Experimental and Comparative Ethology UR 4443, Villetaneuse, France.
Miroslav Kolařík: Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic.
Iñaki Odriozola: Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic. ORCID
Nathan Lo: School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. ORCID
Petr Baldrian: Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic. ORCID
Jan Šobotník: Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic sobotnik@ftz.czu.cz thomas.bourguignon@oist.jp.
Thomas Bourguignon: Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences, Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic sobotnik@ftz.czu.cz thomas.bourguignon@oist.jp. ORCID
All termites have established a wide range of associations with symbiotic microbes in their guts. Some termite species are also associated with microbes that grow in their nests, but the prevalence of these associations remains largely unknown. Here, we studied the bacterial communities associated with the termites and galleries of three wood-feeding termite species by using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. We found that the compositions of bacterial communities among termite bodies, termite galleries, and control wood fragments devoid of termite activities differ in a species-specific manner. Termite galleries were enriched in bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) belonging to and , which were often shared by several termite species. The abundance of several bacterial OTUs, such as , , , and , was reduced in termite galleries. Our results demonstrate that both termite guts and termite galleries harbor unique bacterial communities. As is the case for all ecosystem engineers, termites impact their habitat by their activities, potentially affecting bacterial communities. Here, we studied three wood-feeding termite species and found that they influence the composition of the bacterial communities in their surrounding environment. Termite activities have positive effects on and abundance and negative effects on the abundance of several ubiquitous genera, such as , , , and Our results demonstrate that termite galleries harbor unique bacterial communities.
