Abstract
SummaryAnimals are host to a community of microbes, collectively referred to as their microbiome, that can play a key role in their hosts' biology. The bacterial endosymbionts of insects have a particularly strong influence on their hosts, but despite their importance we still know little about the factors that influence the composition of insect microbial communities. Here, we ask: what is the relative importance of host relatedness and host ecology in structuring symbiont communities of diverse aphid species? We used next‐generation sequencing to compare the microbiomes of 46 aphid species with known host plant affiliations. We find that relatedness between aphid species is the key factor explaining the microbiome composition, with more closely related aphid species housing more similar bacterial communities. Endosymbionts dominate the microbial communities, and we find a novel bacterium in the genus Sphingopyxis that is associated with numerous aphid species feeding exclusively on trees. The influence of ecology was less pronounced than that of host relatedness. Our results suggest that co‐adaptation between insect species and their facultative symbionts is a more important determinant of symbiont species presence in aphids than shared ecology of hosts.
Highlights
Animals are host to a large community of microbes, commonly referred to as their microbiome
Our results are consistent with host taxonomy being the key factor determining the composition of microbial communities in aphids
This is somewhat surprising given that previous studies of two individual aphid species have found that aphid populations adapted to different plant species tend to harbour particular facultative symbiont species, suggesting plant ecology is important in explaining the presence of symbionts in aphids (Frantz et al, 2009; Ferrari et al, 2012; Brady et al, 2014; Peccoud et al, 2015)
Summary
Animals are host to a community of microbes, collectively referred to as their microbiome, that can play a key role in their hosts’ biology. The bacterial endosymbionts of insects have a strong influence on their hosts, but despite their importance we still know little about the factors that influence the composition of insect microbial communities. We ask: what is the relative importance of host relatedness and host ecology in structuring symbiont communities of diverse aphid species? We find that relatedness between aphid species is the key factor explaining the microbiome composition, with more closely related aphid species housing more similar bacterial communities. Our results suggest that co-adaptation between insect species and their facultative symbionts is a more important determinant of symbiont species presence in aphids than shared ecology of hosts
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