Characterization and Comparison of Intestinal Bacterial Microbiomes of Euschistus heros and Piezodorus guildinii Collected in Brazil and the United States.

Matheus Sartori Moro,Maria Imaculada Zucchi,Wei Wei,Steven J Clough,José Baldin Pinheiro,Lucas William Mendes,Xing Wu,Kerry Clint Allen

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2021.769965

Abstract

Background: Herbivorous insects are one of the main biological threats to crops. One such group of insects, stink bugs, do not eat large amounts of tissue when feeding on soybean, but are damaging to the quality of the seed yield as they feed on green developing seeds leading to poorly marketable harvests. In addition to causing physical damage during sucking-feeding activities, the insects can also transmit microbial pathogens, leading to even greater yield loss. Conducting surveys of the insect intestinal microbiome can help identify possible pathogens, as well as detail what healthy stink bug digestive systems have in common.Methods: We used the conserved V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene to characterize the bacterial microbiome of the red-banded stink bug Piezodorus guildinii collected in Brazil and the United States, as well as the neotropical brown stink bug Euschistus heros collected in Brazil.Results: After quality filtering of the data, 192 samples were kept for analyses: 117 samples from P. guildinii covering three sites in Brazil and four sites in the United States, and 75 samples for E. heros covering 10 sites in Brazil. The most interesting observations were that the diversity and abundance of some bacterial families were different in the different ecoregions of Brazil and the United States.Conclusion: Some families, such as Acetobacteraceae, Bacillaceae, Moraxellaceae, Enterobacteriaceae, and Rhodocyclaceae, may be related to the better adaptation in some localities in providing nutrients, break down cellulose, detoxify phytochemicals, and degrade organic compounds, which makes it difficult to control these species.

Highlights

One of the largest threats to crops is insects, either directly through their feeding or indirectly via pathogen transmission (Gullan and Cranston, 2014; Hirakuri and Lazzarotto, 2014; EMBRAPA, 2018)
After OTU identification, low-quality samples were filtered out for downstream analysis, leaving a total of 192 samples out of 286, with 75 samples from E. heros collected from 10 sites in Brazil and 117 samples from P. guildinii collected from three sites in Brazil and four sites in the United States (Supplementary Table 2)
The E. heros rarefaction plot began to plateau by 1,000–1,500 reads per sample for most locations, the Teresina and Uberlândia locations might have benefited from additional sequencing as those plotlines still had a slightly positive slope at 1,500 (Supplementary Figure 1A)

Summary

Introduction

One of the largest threats to crops is insects, either directly through their feeding or indirectly via pathogen transmission (Gullan and Cranston, 2014; Hirakuri and Lazzarotto, 2014; EMBRAPA, 2018). Stink bugs like to feed on legumes such as soybean (Glycine max L.), common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), peas (Pisum sativum L.), and alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), in addition to multiple alternative host plants that might be found within or near an agricultural field (Panizzi et al, 2012). Throughout their lives, stink bugs can explore several environments and diverse food sources, which can modulate de gut microbiome. Conducting surveys of the insect intestinal microbiome can help identify possible pathogens, as well as detail what healthy stink bug digestive systems have in common

Methods

Results

Conclusion