The microbiome of the invertebrate model host Galleria mellonella is dominated by Enterococcus

The popularity of Galleria mellonella as invertebrate model is increasing rapidly, because it forms an attractive alternative to study bacterial, fungal and viral infections, toxin biology, and to screen antimicrobial drugs. For a number of vertebrate and invertebrate animal and plant models, it has been established that the commensals present within the microbial community will influence the host's immune and growth development state and the colonization capacity of newly introduced micro-organisms. The microbial communities of Galleria mellonella larvae have, however, not yet been well characterized.