Carpenter bee gut microbiota sequencing

The goal of this study was to characterize the gut bacteria associated with Xylocopa carpenter bees and determine how those communities differ by species and geographic location. Two species of bee, X. sonorina and X. tabaniformis, were sampled at three different locations. A total of 55 bees were obtained. The crop and hind gut of each bee was then separated via dissection for a total of 110 samples. We then extracted the DNA and amplified full length 16S rRNA regions from each sample. Subsequent amplicons were sequenced using Pacific Biosciences Sequel2.

本研究旨在解析与木蜂属（Xylocopa）木蜂相关的肠道细菌群落，并明确该群落随蜜蜂物种及地理区位的差异特征。研究在三个不同地理点位采集了两种木蜂样本：X. sonorina与X. tabaniformis，共计获取55头蜜蜂个体。随后通过解剖分离每头蜜蜂的蜜囊与后肠，最终获得110份样本。随后对每份样本进行DNA提取，并扩增其全长16S rRNA基因区域。后续使用太平洋生物科学（Pacific Biosciences）Sequel2测序平台对所得扩增子进行测序。