Entomophilic Nematodes Inhabit Beetles with Distinct Microbiomes. invertebrate metagenome

We describe the microbiome of scarab beetles collected during summer of 2014 in greater Los Angeles and the entomophilic nematodes that these species harbor. We sequenced the 16S rDNA from 247 beetles belonging to 5 different species, along with 73 associated nematodes belonging to 11 different species using the Illumina and Qiime pipeline. We tested the hypothesis that the host beetles (Cyclocephala, Serica, and Amblonoxia) differ in their bacterial microbiome. We found significant differences in beta diversity among these three beetle host species, independent of differences in geographic sampling. Furthermore, bacterial communities derived from the nematodes emerging from the beetles showed less beta diversity than their beetle hosts and did not differ significantly from each other.