Abstract
The Southern green stinkbug (N. viridula) feeds on developing soybean seeds in spite of their strong defenses against herbivory, making this pest one of the most harmful to soybean crops. To test the hypothesis that midgut bacterial community allows stinkbugs to tolerate chemical defenses of soybean developing seeds, we identified and characterized midgut microbiota of stinkbugs collected from soybean crops, different secondary plant hosts or insects at diapause on Eucalyptus trees. Our study demonstrated that while more than 54% of N. viridula adults collected in the field had no detectable bacteria in the V1-V3 midgut ventricles, the guts of the rest of stinkbugs were colonized by non-transient microbiota (NTM) and transient microbiota not present in stinkbugs at diapause. While transient microbiota Bacillus sp., Micrococcus sp., Streptomyces sp., Staphylococcus sp. and others had low abundance, NTM microbiota was represented by Yokenella sp., Pantoea sp. and Enterococcus sp. isolates. We found some isolates that showed in vitro β-glucosidase and raffinase activities plus the ability to degrade isoflavonoids and deactivate soybean protease inhibitors. Our results suggest that the stinkbugs´ NTM microbiota may impact on nutrition, detoxification and deactivation of chemical defenses, and Enterococcus sp., Yokenella sp. and Pantoea sp. strains might help stinkbugs to feed on soybean developing seeds in spite of its chemical defenses.
Highlights
To test the hypothesis that midgut bacterial community of stinkbugs (N. viridula) deactivates chemical defenses of soybean developing seeds, we identified and characterized midgut microbiota of stinkbugs collected from soybean crops, different secondary plant hosts (SH) or Eucalyptus trees (Fig 1)
Our study demonstrated that while more than 54% of N. viridula adults collected in the field
Stinkbug’s non-transient microbiota had no detectable bacteria in V1-V3 midgut ventricles, the guts of the rest of stinkbugs were colonized by non-transient microbiota (NTM) and transient microbiota not present in stinkbugs at diapause (Fig 2)
Summary
Even if developing soybean seeds respond to stinkbug damage up-regulating important defenses against herbivore insects, as cysteine proteases inhibitors and isoflavonoids production [1,2], these induced chemical defenses are not sufficient to stop attack by the southern. Stinkbug’s non-transient microbiota analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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