Alignment_for_meta-analysis

Our data set on H. abietis-associated bacteria was expanded by the addition of 308 bacterial sequences from GenBank associated with ten different insect host species belonging to four genera. These sequences included bacterial taxa found in the gut microbiota of five species of bark beetles belonging to two genera that feed on conifers, as well as five weevil species belonging to two genera that feed on red palm trees and ornamental plants, respectively . We only selected culture-independent studies. Database sequences were aligned with those obtained in this study using SINA. The alignment was imported into ARB together with the SILVA 115 database and a phylogenetic tree was constructed. We refined the alignment by selecting all H.abietis-associated sequences and those of closely related bacterial type strains present in the SILVA database. The final alignment was produced by filtering some sequences: we only retained those sequences from the pine weevil that corresponded to the 50 most prevalent OTUs and in addition those of minor OTUs that clustered together with other bark beetle or weevil-associated bacterial sequences. We also eliminated those bacterial sequences from bark beetles and weevils (other than H. abietis) that did not cluster together with any other insect-associated bacteria in this study.