Data from: Drivers and patterns of microbial community assembly in a Lyme disease vector

Vector-borne diseases constitute a major global health burden and are
increasing in geographic range and prevalence. Mounting evidence has
demonstrated that the vector microbiome can impact pathogen dynamics,
making the microbiome a focal point in vector-borne disease ecology.
However, efforts to generalize preliminary findings across studies and
systems and translate these findings into disease control strategies are
hindered by a lack of fundamental understanding of the processes shaping
the vector microbiome and the interactions therein. Here we use 16S rRNA
sequencing and apply a community ecology framework to analyze microbiome
community assembly and interactions in Ixodes pacificus, the Lyme disease
vector in the western US. We find that vertical and environmental
transmission routes drive population-level patterns in I. pacificus
microbial diversity and composition, but not in microbial function and
overall abundance. Further we find that the I. pacificus microbiome is not
strongly structured based on competition but assembles non-randomly,
likely due to vector-specific filtering processes which largely eliminate
all but the dominant endosymbiont, Rickettsia. At the scale of the
individual I. pacificus, we find support for a highly limited internal
microbial community, and propose that the tick endosymbiont may be the
most important component of the vector microbiome in influencing pathogen
dynamics.