Metabarcoding of the gut community of Melipona quadrifasciata fed on supplementary diets

This is a longitudinal study on nine managed colonies of the stingless bee Melipona quadrifasciata from the south of Brazil, aiming to characterise changes in the gut microbiome of foragers before and after chronic feeding on supplementary diets. Bee colonies were separate in three groups: i. three were fed on spirulina and sacarose (1:1); ii. three on sacarose only; and iii. three control colonies were not supplemented with any additional diet. Bees were fed during 5 months (October 2022 - March 2023) and random samples from each colony were taken before and after the experiment for dissection, DNA extraction and metabarcoding. Metabarcoding was performed on 48 forager bees sampled in front of the hives using 16S (bacteria) and ITS2 (eukaryotes) as genetic markers.