The bacterial community associated to an Italian population of Psacothea hilaris: a preliminary study

The yellow-spotted longicorn beetle, Psacothea hilaris (Pascoe) (Coleoptera Cerambycidae), native to eastern Asia, is an invasive species for Europe, where it is present since 2005 as a pest of Morus and Ficus spp. Up to date, no study on the bacterial community associated with P. hilaris has been carried out. The aim of the present work is to characterize the bacterial community associated to an Italian population of P. hilaris collected on F. carica L. through a culture-independent method (i.e., 454 pyrosequencing) targeting the 16S rRNA gene. The DNA used for bacterial characterization has been extracted from the whole abdomen of 15 adults (seven males and eight females) sampled on the host plant immediately after their emergence in Alserio (Como, Italy) between August and September 2012. The sequencing strategy led to a total of ≈ 2,350 bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequences that have been clustered into 141 bacterial operational taxonomic units. Results shown that the bacterial community was dominated by Proteobacteria (86%) belonging to Oxalobacteraceae and Enterobacteriaceae (respectively 36.4% and 34.8%). Pantoea resulted the most abundant genus (28.4%), and the other relevant bacterial genera associated with P. hilaris are Ralstonia (18.6%), Methylobacterium (3%), Lactococcus (2%) and Propionibacterium (1.4%).

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