Sze-Looi Song, Hoi-Sen Yong, Kah-Ooi Chua, Praphathip Eamsobhana, Phaik-Eem Lim, Kok-Gan Chan
The chrysomelid beetles and are members of the subfamilies Galerucinae and Cassidinae, respectively. This study, based on 16S rRNA gene-targeted metagenomics sequencing, reports the core members and differential abundance of bacterial communities in the larvae and adult beetles of and the adult . Cyanobacteria/Melainabacteria group was the predominant phylum in the larvae of , while Proteobacteria was the predominant phylum in adult and . The number of Order, Family, Genus and Species OTUs in the adult stage of was higher than that in the larval stage. The bacterial species richness of adult was significantly higher than that of adult . Betaproteobacteria was the predominant class in adult , Cyanobacteria in the larvae of and Gammaproteobacteria in . The larvae and adult beetles of and adult had a low number of unique and shared bacterial OTUs (> 5% relative abundance). The differences in the microbiota indicate possible differences in nutrient assimilation, host taxonomy and other stochastic processes. These findings provide new information to our understanding of the bacteria associated with specialist phytophagous chrysomelid beetles and beetles in general.
