No evidence of a cleaning mutualism between burying beetles and their phoretic mites.
No evidence of a cleaning mutualism between burying beetles and their phoretic mites.
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DOI：
10.1038/s41598-017-14201-6
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发表时间：
2017-10-23
影响因子：
4.6
通讯作者：
Kilner RM
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Duarte A;Cotter SC;De Gasperin O;Houslay TM;Boncoraglio G;Welch M;Kilner RM
埋藏甲虫（Nicrophorus vespilloides）在小型脊椎动物尸体上繁殖，它们将尸体剃毛并涂上抗菌分泌物。生产抗菌剂会给埋藏甲虫带来适应性成本，这种成本随着抗菌防御能力的增强而增加。埋葬甲虫还携带泳螨（Poecilochirus carabi 复合体），它们会在甲虫尸体上一起繁殖。在这里，我们测试了一个新的假设，即 P. carabi 螨协助埋藏甲虫清除尸体上的细菌，这是放牧腐肉的副作用。我们操纵尸体上的细菌环境，并测量了存在和不存在螨虫时对甲虫的影响。通过下一代测序，我们研究了螨虫如何影响尸体上的细菌群落。我们发现螨虫：1）导致甲虫降低其分泌物的抗菌活性，但2）与螨虫一起繁殖并没有一致的健身益处。我们还发现螨虫增加了尸体上的细菌多样性和丰富度，但不会减少细菌丰度。目前的证据并不支持埋葬甲虫和 P. carabi 螨虫之间的清洁互利共生，但需要做更多的工作来了解与螨虫相关的甲虫尸体细菌群落变化的功能意义和适应性后果。
Burying beetles (Nicrophorus vespilloides) breed on small vertebrate carcasses, which they shave and smear with antimicrobial exudates. Producing antimicrobials imposes a fitness cost on burying beetles, which rises with the potency of the antimicrobial defence. Burying beetles also carry phoretic mites (Poecilochirus carabi complex), which breed alongside them on the carcass. Here we test the novel hypothesis that P. carabi mites assist burying beetles in clearing the carcass of bacteria as a side-effect of grazing on the carrion. We manipulated the bacterial environment on carcasses and measured the effect on the beetle in the presence and absence of mites. With next-generation sequencing, we investigated how mites influence the bacterial communities on the carcass. We show that mites: 1) cause beetles to reduce the antibacterial activity of their exudates but 2) there are no consistent fitness benefits of breeding alongside mites. We also find that mites increase bacterial diversity and richness on the carcass, but do not reduce bacterial abundance. The current evidence does not support a cleaning mutualism between burying beetles and P. carabi mites, but more work is needed to understand the functional significance and fitness consequences for the beetle of mite-associated changes to the bacterial community on the carcass.
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影响因子：
56.9
作者：
BRISTOW, CM
通讯作者：
BRISTOW, CM
影响因子：
4.8
作者：
Cotter, Sheena C.;Littlefair, Joanne E.;Kilner, Rebecca M.
通讯作者：
Kilner, Rebecca M.
影响因子：
15.8
作者：
Ioannidis, JPA
通讯作者：
Ioannidis, JPA
影响因子：
2.1
作者：
Arce, A. N.;Johnston, P. R.;Rozen, D. E.
通讯作者：
Rozen, D. E.
影响因子：
4.4
作者：
Kozich, James J.;Westcott, Sarah L.;Schloss, Patrick D.
通讯作者：
Schloss, Patrick D.