Bacterial diversity associated with Anastrepha obliqua males change under mass-rearing conditions and with irradiation

Disponible para usuarios de ECOSUR con su clave de acceso

Recent advances in understanding the symbiotic interactions between bacteria and fruit fies have shown that they are relevant for mass rearing and the sterile insect technique (SIT). SIT involves mass production and release of sterile insects that would copulate with their wild conspecifcs and thus decrease the population growth rate. The irradiation process used to sterilize mass-reared fies can modify the diversity and structure of the midgut bacterial communities, which could afect sterile male survival, fight capacity, and sexual competitiveness. Our aim was to compare bacterial communities in the midgut of wild and mass-reared Anastrepha obliqua (Macquart) males irradiated at 0, 60, and 80 Gy. After adult’s emergence, their midguts were dissected, DNA was extracted, and high-throughput sequencing of the V3–V4 region of the 16S rDNA gene was performed. A total of 11 phyla, 17 classes, 47 families, and 52 genera of bacteria were identifed. The most representative phylum was Proteobacteria and the predominant family was Enterobacteriaceae. We found that wild males had a diferent intestinal bacterial community from mass-reared males. In addition, irradiation at 60 and 80 Gy caused changes in the diversity and structure of the midgut microbiota of these sterile males, suggesting that mass rearing and irradiation cause artifcial selection of the bacterial communities in the gut of A. obliqua males. eng