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Comparative analysis of the gut microbiota of Apis cerana in Yunnan using high-throughput sequencing

Archives of Microbiology volume 202, pages 2557–2567 (2020)Cite this article

Abstract

Gut microbes play an important role in host disease and health. The Asian honey bee Apis cerana is an important pollinator of agricultural crops in China. However, there are still few studies on the structure and composition of the microbiota in the intestine of A. cerana, especially A. cerana in Yunnan. To understand the species and composition of the microbiota in the intestine of A. cerana in Yunnan, we used high-throughput sequencing technology to carry out 16S rRNA sequencing on 50 samples from Kunming, Xishuangbanna and Mengzi. The results show that both from the phylum level and the genus level, the structure and abundance of the microbiota in the gut of A. cerana from the three regions tended to be the same. At the phylum level, the abundance of Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria and other species was high in A. cerana from different areas. At the genus level, the abundance of Lactobacillus, Gilliamella, Snodgrassella, Apibacter, Candidatus Schmidhempelia and other species was high in A. cerana from different areas. Due to its unique geographical environment and climatic conditions, at the genus level, the diversity of bacterial communities in Xishuangbanna was significantly lower than that in the other two regions, which was about 100 genera less. In conclusion, our results reveal the composition and structure of the intestinal microbiota of bees in Yunnan and deepen our understanding of the intestinal microbiota of bees.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31660695), Scientific Research Foundation for Youth Scholars of KUST(2016-4-S-2).

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Author notes

  1. Zhi-Wen Luo and Zhi-Xiang Dong contributed equally.

Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Life Science and Technology, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, 650500, Yunnan, China

    Zhi-Wen Luo, Zhi-Xiang Dong, Yi-Fei Chen, Huan-Yuan Li, Qi-He Tang & Jun Guo

  2. Institute of Apiculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science/Key Laboratory of Pollinating Insect Biology, Ministry of Agriculture, Beijing, 100093, China

    Ji-Lian Li

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  1. Zhi-Wen Luo
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Luo, ZW., Dong, ZX., Chen, YF. et al. Comparative analysis of the gut microbiota of Apis cerana in Yunnan using high-throughput sequencing. Arch Microbiol 202, 2557–2567 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-020-01974-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-020-01974-0

Keywords

  • Gut microbes
  • Apis cerana
  • Microbiota structure
  • 16S rRNA sequencing