Publication Date:
2019-12-19
Description:
Many ecological and evolutionary processes in animals depend upon microbial symbioses. In spiders, the role of the microbiome in these processes remains mostly unknown. We compared the microbiome between populations, individuals, and tissue types of a range-expanding spider, using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Our study is one of the first to go beyond targeting known endosymbionts in spiders and characterizes the total microbiome across different body compartments (leg, prosoma, hemolymph, book lungs, ovaries, silk glands, midgut, and fecal pellets). Overall, the microbiome differed significantly between populations and individuals, but not between tissue types. The microbiome of the wasp spider Argiope bruennichi features a novel dominant bacterial symbiont, which is abundant in every tissue type in spiders from geographically distinct populations and that is also present in offspring. The novel symbiont is affiliated with the Tenericutes, but has low sequence identity (
Electronic ISSN:
2076-2607
Topics:
Biology
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