Bacterial communities of the cotton aphid Aphis gossypii associated with Bt cotton in northern China

Yao Zhao,Jin-Jie Cui,Shuai Zhang,Jun-Yu Luo,Chun-Yi Wang,Li-Min Lv

doi:10.1038/srep22958

Yao Zhao, Jin-Jie Cui + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/srep22958

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Abstract

Aphids are infected with a wide variety of endosymbionts that can confer ecologically relevant traits. However, the bacterial communities of most aphid species are still poorly characterized. This study investigated the bacterial diversity of the cotton aphid Aphis gossypii associated with Bt cotton in northern China by targeting the V4 region of the 16S rDNA using the Illumina MiSeq platform. Our sequencing data revealed that bacterial communities of A. gossypii were generally dominated by the primary symbiont Buchnera, together with the facultative symbionts Arsenophonus and Hamiltonella. To our knowledge, this is the first report documenting the facultative symbiont Hamiltonella in A. gossypii. Moreover, the bacterial community structure was similar within aphids from the same province, but distinct among those from different provinces. The taxonomic diversity of the bacterial community is greater in Hebei Province compared with in samples from Henan and Shandong Provinces. The selection pressure exerted by the different geographical locations could explain the differences found among the various provinces. These findings broaden our understanding of the interactions among aphids, endosymbionts and their environments, and provide clues to develop potential biocontrol techniques against this cotton aphid.

Highlights

Aphids are infected with a wide variety of endosymbionts that can confer ecologically relevant traits
We used the Illumina MiSeq platform targeting the V4 region of the 16S rDNA to determine (1) whether the bacterial communities in A. gossypii associated with Bt cotton were dominated by the primary and facultative symbionts, and (2) whether the diversity of the bacterial communities differed among multiple field populations of A. gossypii in northern China
The rarefaction curve for every sample tended to saturation (Fig. S1), and the value of Good’s coverage of sequencing data in all samples was above 97% at the 0.03 dissimilarity cut-off (Table 1). These results indicated that our sequencing results captured most of the bacterial diversity associated with A. gossypii

Summary

Introduction

Aphids are infected with a wide variety of endosymbionts that can confer ecologically relevant traits. This study investigated the bacterial diversity of the cotton aphid Aphis gossypii associated with Bt cotton in northern China by targeting the V4 region of the 16S rDNA using the Illumina MiSeq platform. Our sequencing data revealed that bacterial communities of A. gossypii were generally dominated by the primary symbiont Buchnera, together with the facultative symbionts Arsenophonus and Hamiltonella. We used the Illumina MiSeq platform targeting the V4 region of the 16S rDNA to determine (1) whether the bacterial communities in A. gossypii associated with Bt cotton were dominated by the primary and facultative symbionts, and (2) whether the diversity of the bacterial communities differed among multiple field populations of A. gossypii in northern China

Methods

Results

Conclusion