Dynamics of Microbial Communities across the Life Stages of Nilaparvata lugens (Stål)

Abstract

Understanding the composition of microorganismal communities hosted by insect pests is an important prerequisite for revealing their functions and developing new pest control strategies. Although studies of the structure of the microbiome of Nilaparvata lugens have been published, little is known about the dynamic changes in this microbiome across different developmental stages, and an understanding of the core microbiota is still lacking. In this study, we investigated the dynamic changes in bacteria and fungi in different developmental stages of N. lugens using high-throughput sequencing technology. We observed that the microbial diversity in eggs and mated adults was higher than that in nymphs and unmated adults. We also observed a notable strong correlation between fungal and bacterial α-diversity, which suggests that fungi and bacteria are closely linked and may perform functions collaboratively during the whole developmental period. Arsenophonus and Hirsutella were the predominant bacterial and fungal taxa, respectively. Bacteria were more conserved than fungi during the transmission of the microbiota between developmental stages. Compared with that in the nymph and unmated adult stages of N. lugens, the correlation between bacterial and fungal communities in the mated adult and egg stages was stronger. Moreover, the core microbiota across all developmental stages in N. lugens was identified, and there were more bacterial genera than fungal genera; notably, the core microbiota of eggs, nymphs, and mated and unmated adults showed distinctive functional enrichment. These findings highlight the potential value of further exploring microbial functions during different developmental stages and developing new pest management strategies.

Keywords: Development; Dynamic; Host-microbial interaction; Microbiota structure; Nilaparvata lugens.