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.