10.5061/DRYAD.PC830
Shukla, Shantanu P.
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology
Vogel, Heiko
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology
Heckel, David G.
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology
Vilcinskas, Andreas
University of Giessen
Kaltenpoth, Martin
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology
Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz
Data from: Burying beetles regulate the microbiome of carcasses and use it
to transmit a core microbiota to their offspring
Dryad
dataset
2017
Yarrowia
preservation
Symbiosis
microbial succession
2017-07-24T16:45:45Z
2017-07-24T16:45:45Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.14269
13809587 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Necrophagous beetles utilize carrion, a highly nutritious resource that is
susceptible to intense microbial competition, by treating it with
antimicrobial anal and oral secretions. However, how this regulates the
carcass microbiota remains unclear. Here, we show that carcasses prepared
by the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides undergo significant changes
in their microbial communities subsequent to their burial and
‘preparation’. Prepared carcasses hosted a microbial community that was
more similar to that of beetles’ anal and oral secretions than to the
native carcass community or the surrounding soil, indicating that the
beetles regulated the carcass microbiota. A core microbial community
(Xanthomonadaceae, Enterococcaceae, Enterobacteriaceae, and Yarrowia
yeasts) was transmitted by the beetles to the larvae via the anal and oral
secretions and the carcass surface. These core taxa proliferated on the
carcass, indicating a growth conducive environment for these microbes when
associated with beetles. However, total bacterial loads were higher on
decomposing carcasses without beetles than on beetle-prepared carcasses,
indicating that the beetles and/or their associated symbionts suppress the
growth of competing microbes. Thus, apart from being a nutritional
resource, the carcass provides a medium for vertical transmission of a
tightly regulated symbiotic microbiota, whose activity on the carcass and
in the larval gut may involve carcass preservation as well as digestion.
Nicrophorus_carcassmicrobiome_analysisThis contains files used in the
analysis of the Nicrophorus vespilloides microbiome.It contains denoised,
quality filtered reads for bacterial (Nvesp_16S_seqs.fna) and fungal
(Nvesp_ITS_seqs.fna) datasets, metadata mapping files (16S_metadata.txt
and ITS_metadata.txt), representative sequence sets for all OTUs
(16S_rep_set.fna and ITS_repset.fasta) and the final OTU tables
(16S_otutable.csv and ITS_otutable.csv).