Adult butterfly core microbiota across continents

We characterize the microbiota of adult butterflies from natural environments along elevational and temporal gradients across two continents spanning the Neotropical and Palearctic realms. Microbiota diversity and composition were primarily explained by host taxonomic identity, whereas geographic location and temperature had little effect. We found a common core microbiota conserved across seven butterfly subfamilies from temperate and tropical regions, which include lactic acid bacteria (LAB), acetic acid bacteria (AAB), and even some bee-associated taxa.Together, our results demonstrate that host taxonomic identity, rather than environmental drivers, is the dominant force structuring the microbiota of adult butterflies. This highlights that the host-filtering abilities of solitary species have been largely underestimated, which challenges previous assumptions of a mainly environmentally driven microbiota in this important pollinator group.