Gut microbiota assembly and transitions across life-stages in wild and laboratory populations of the parasitic fly Philornis downsi

Philornis downsi (Diptera: Muscidae) is an accidentally introduced parasitic nest fly that poses significant extinction threats to land birds in the Galápagos Islands. Sterile insect technology is an ideal approach to control an insect in an island setting and is being considered as a potential management tactic against the P. downsi. However, deployment depends on the ability to mass rear the target insect, prior to its sterilization and release. Currently, P. downsi larvae can be reared on chicken-blood based diets, but these methods are prohibitively labor-intensive for high-volume mass rearing, and in any case adult flies rarely mate under laboratory conditions making a continuous culture impossible. Improvements in both larval survival and mating under domestication can be achieved through systematic understanding of the microbiome associated with discrete life stages, in comparison to their field counterparts. According we studied the gut microbiome of this fly, across life-stages in wild and laboratory populations, to pinpoint the missing elements in the laboratory.