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Variations in Diversity and Richness of Gut Bacterial Communities of Termites (Reticulitermes flavipes) Fed with Grassy and Woody Plant Substrates

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Abstract

Diets shape the animal gut microbiota, although the relationships between diets and the structure of the gut microbial community are not yet well understood. The gut bacterial communities of Reticulitermes flavipes termites fed on four individual plant biomasses with different degrees of recalcitrance to biodegradation were investigated by 16S rRNA pyrosequencing analysis. The termite gut bacterial communities could be differentiated between grassy and woody diets, and among grassy diets (corn stover vs. sorghum). The majority of bacterial taxa were shared across all diets, but each diet significantly enriched some taxa. Interestingly, the diet of corn stover reduced gut bacterial richness and diversity compared to other diets, and this may be related to the lower recalcitrance of this biomass to degradation.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Prof. Dr. Andreas Brune (Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Germany) for generously sharing a termite-specific reference database that improved sequence classification success. We are also grateful to Dr. Daniel K. Manter (USDA-ARS Soil–Plant–Nutrient Research Unit, Fort Collins, CO) and Dr. Stephen R. Decker (National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO) for providing the plant biomasses used in this study. The research in JMV’s laboratory is supported by the National Science Foundation to JMV (grant no. MCB-0950857).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Rhizosphere Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80523-1173, USA

    Xing-Feng Huang, Matthew G. Bakker & Jorge M. Vivanco

  2. Department of Biology, Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau, MO, 63701, USA

    Timothy M. Judd

  3. Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Kenneth F. Reardon

Authors
  1. Xing-Feng Huang
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  2. Matthew G. Bakker
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  3. Timothy M. Judd
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jorge M. Vivanco.

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Fig. S1

Rarefaction curves showing the detection of new microbial taxa as sampling depth increased. Top left: gut bacterial communities of termites fed corn. Top right: sorghum. Bottom left: pine. Bottom right: poplar. Saturation of sampling was generally consistent across replicates, and was highest for corn relative to the other diets (JPEG 53 kb)

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Fig. S2

Principal coordinates analysis for visualization of pairwise community similarities, using a phylogenetic measure (weighted Unifrac distance). 95 % confidence ellipses are shown around samples from each diet. The proportion of variation explained by each axis is shown on the axis labels (JPEG 39 kb)

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Fig. S3

a) Termite gut bacterial OTU richness varied significantly with diet. Observed richness was significantly lower for corn stover compared to pine (p = 0.045; ANOVA with Tukey contrasts) and poplar (p = 0.016). Estimated OTU richness (Chao estimate) was lower for termites fed corn stover than any other diet (0.0038 < p < 0.012). b) Termite gut bacterial diversity varied significantly with diet. OTU diversity (Shannon index) was lowest for corn stover (ANOVA, p = 0.036), although individual contrasts were not significant (0.054 < p < 0.074). Compared to a diet of corn stover, phylogenetic diversity was significantly higher for a diet of pine (p = 0.027) or poplar (p = 0.0097), and almost so for sorghum (p = 0.062) (JPEG 53 kb)

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Huang, XF., Bakker, M.G., Judd, T.M. et al. Variations in Diversity and Richness of Gut Bacterial Communities of Termites (Reticulitermes flavipes) Fed with Grassy and Woody Plant Substrates. Microb Ecol 65, 531–536 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-013-0219-y

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