Are you what you eat? A highly transient and prey-influenced gut microbiome in the grey house spider Badumna longinqua

Stable core microbial communities have been described in numerous animal species and are commonly associated with fitness benefits for their hosts. Recent research, however, highlights examples of species whose microbiota are transient and environmentally derived. Here, we test the effect of diet on gut microbial community assembly in the spider Badumna longinqua. Using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing combined with quantitative PCR, we analyze diversity and abundance of the spider’s gut microbes, and simultaneously characterize its prey communities using nuclear rRNA markers. We find a clear correlation between community similarity of the spider’s insect prey and gut microbial DNA, suggesting that microbiome assembly is primarily diet-driven . This assumption is supported by a feeding experiment, in which two types of prey – crickets and fruit flies – both substantially altered microbial diversity and community similarity between spiders, but did so in different ways. After cricket co...

目前已有诸多动物类群被报道存在稳定的核心微生物群落，此类群落通常与宿主的生存适应性提升密切相关。但近期的研究亦披露了若干类群，其微生物组为暂时性且源自环境。本研究以蜘蛛Badumna longinqua为研究对象，探究饮食对其肠道微生物群落组装的调控效应。本研究采用16S rRNA基因扩增子测序（16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing）结合定量PCR（quantitative PCR）技术，分析该蜘蛛肠道微生物的多样性与丰度；同时借助核rRNA标记（nuclear rRNA markers）对其猎物群落进行表征。研究结果显示，该蜘蛛的昆虫猎物群落相似度与肠道微生物DNA群落相似度之间存在显著相关性，表明其微生物组组装主要由饮食驱动。该推论得到了摄食实验的验证：实验选取蟋蟀与果蝇两种猎物，二者均能显著改变蜘蛛间的微生物多样性及群落相似度，但调控路径存在差异。在蟋蟀共……