Biology Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-2020
Journal
The Canadian Entomologist
Volume
152
Issue
4
First Page
516
Last Page
531
URL with Digital Object Identifier
https://doi.org/10.4039/tce.2020.37
Abstract
The insect commensal microbiota consists of prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The effect of diet and the persistence of the gut microbiota in Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura) (Diptera: Drosophilidae) are not well-understood. We transferred subsets of a single population of D. suzukii to different fruit-based diets (blueberry, raspberry, and strawberry) for three generations and then returned them to a common, banana-based, laboratory diet. We used 16S (bacteria) and ITS (fungi) sequencing of female endosymbiont-free flies to identify the microbiota. We identified 2700 bacterial and 350 fungal OTUs; there was no correlation between the number of bacterial and fungal OTUs in a sample. Bacterial communities were dominated by Proteobacteria (especially Acetobacteraceae); Ascomycota dominated the fungal communities. Species diversity of both bacteria and fungi differed among diets, but there were no differences in species-level diversity when these flies were returned to a control diet. A Principle Coordinates Analysis revealed no differences in the bacterial or fungal community in the first generation on fruit diets, but that the communities diverged over the next two generations; neither fungal and bacterial communities converged after one generation on control food. We conclude that diet changes the D. suzukii microbiota, and that these changes persist for more than one generation.
