Microbial communities in Ornithodoros phacochoerus ticks

The present study was performed to understand the organization and spatial distribution of the microbiota of Ornithodoros phacochoerus, an afrotropical soft tick involved in African Swine Fever virus transmission. One of the objectives was to investigate if the pathogen of interest (ASF virus) is involved in the organization of the microbiota through pathogen-induced dysbiosis or other interactions. For this purpose, 704 O. phacochoerus ticks were collected from two conservation areas in Mozambique. Sequencing was performed targeting the V3-V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene, and the resulting dataset was processed using FROGS to characterize the bacterial microbiota hosted by the ticks. This dataset give the metabarcoding sequencing results.