Microbial Community Composition Reveals Spatial Variation and Distinctive Core Microbiome of the Weaver Ant Oecophylla smaragdina in Malaysia

Chua, K.O. and Song, Sze Looi and Yong, Hoi Sen and See-Too, W.S. and Yin, W.F. and Chan, Kok Gan (2018) Microbial Community Composition Reveals Spatial Variation and Distinctive Core Microbiome of the Weaver Ant Oecophylla smaragdina in Malaysia. Scientific Reports, 8 (1). pp. 1-11. ISSN 2045-2322, DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-29159-2.

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Abstract

The weaver ant Oecophylla smaragdina is an aggressive predator of other arthropods and has been employed as a biological control agent against many insect pests in plantations. Despite playing important roles in pest management, information about the microbiota of O. smaragdina is limited. In this work, a number of O. smaragdina colonies (n = 12) from Malaysia had been studied on their microbiome profile using Illumina 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. We characterized the core microbiota associated with these O. smaragdina and investigated variation between colonies from different environments. Across all 12 samples, 97.8% of the sequences were assigned to eight bacterial families and most communities were dominated by families Acetobacteraceae and Lactobacillaceae. Comparison among colonies revealed predominance of Acetobacteraceae in O. smaragdina from forest areas but reduced abundance was observed in colonies from urban areas. In addition, our findings also revealed distinctive community composition in O. smaragdina showing little taxonomic overlap with previously reported ant microbiota. In summary, our work provides information regarding microbiome of O. smaragdina which is essential for establishing healthy colonies. This study also forms the basis for further study on microbiome of O. smaragdina from other regions.

Item Type:	Article
Funders:	University of Malaya Research Grants (GA001-2016, GA002-2016), Postgraduate Research (PPP) Grant (Grant No. PG089-2015B)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Microbial Community; Spatial Variation; Microbiome; Weaver Ant Oecophylla smaragdina; Malaysia
Subjects:	Q Science > Q Science (General) Q Science > QH Natural history
Divisions:	Faculty of Science
Depositing User:	Ms. Juhaida Abd Rahim
Date Deposited:	07 Aug 2018 07:34
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2019 04:31
URI:	http://eprints.um.edu.my/id/eprint/18974

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