Comparison of gut microbiome from Sulawesi carrion and burying beetles (Coleoptera: Silphidae) through metagenomic analysis of 16S rRNA gene

Ruby Setiawan,Anang Setiawan Achmadi,I Nyoman Sumerta,Syahfitri Anita,Raden Pramesa Narakusumo,A Setiawan Achmadi,E Dwijayanti,Encilia Encilia,A.S Nurinsiyah,S Anita,A Elang N.H,D.C Murniati,A Setyo Budi,Rusdianto Rusdianto,A Qodri

doi:10.1051/bioconf/20201900015

Abstract

Carrion beetle (Coleoptera: Silphidae) is one of the scavengers which obtain nutrition from carcass decomposition which supported by the microbial symbionts through the mutual symbiosis. In this study, we characterized and compared the gut microbial community from the species of Nicrophorinae (Nicrophorus distinctus Grouvelle, 1885) and Silphinae (Necrophila renatae Portevin, 1920) from Dako Mountain, Central Sulawesi using 16S metagenomic approach. A total of 661 bacterial Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) at the species level were obtained from the guts of Ni. distinctus and Ne. renatae. Those numbers were predominated by Firmicutes and Proteobacteria, followed by Bacteriodetes in both species. Interestingly, a high number of Lactobacillales was observed in Ni. distinctus and lower number in Clostridiales and Cardiobacteriales compared to Ne. renatae, which showed higher abundance of those classes. Both of these insect species have nearly the same microbial diversity values, even though there some lower taxa levels were found different abundance. These results suggest that the patterns of the gut microbial structure depicted their roles in certain behavior and habitat on decomposing carcasses and could be correlated to the specific level of taxa roles in nutrient processing.

Highlights

Beetles from family Silphidae is one of the most important scavengers in the nutrient cycling on terrestrial environment
About 260,611 sequences were obtained after metagenomic sequencing of bacterial 16S rRNA gene
After quality filtering, trimming, merging and chimera removal using DADA2 pipeline in QIIME2, a total of 146,112 sequences binned into 661 Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs), 101 OTUs were omitted because the abundance was below the threshold of 10 sequence reads per OTU

Summary

Introduction

Beetles from family Silphidae is one of the most important scavengers in the nutrient cycling on terrestrial environment They provide ecosystem services by recycling the nutrients from decomposing carcasses. Silphidae family consists of two subfamilies which are Silphinae (carrion beetles) and Nicrophorinae (burying beetles) Those groups have different behaviour on treating carcass. The carrion beetles feed and rear their offspring inside the carcass while the burying beetles rear their offspring around the buried carcass to hide it from other scavengers [1]. In decomposing process, they are supported by microbes to digest the substrates

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