“Survey of microbes associated with all western corn rootworm life stages reveals no difference between insects reared on different soils

Western corn rootworm (Diabrotica virgifera virgifera LeConte) is a serious pest of maize (Zea mays L.) in the United States. New information is needed on the biology of this pest to explore new control options. With most of its life cycle spent in the soil feeding on maize root tissues, this insect is likely to encounter and interact with a wide range of soil and root rhizosphere microbes. A growing focus has been placed on the role of microbes in pests and in agricultural fields with regards to pest management and plant health. It is important to know what microorganisms are present that could play a role in life history or management. The experiments contained non-diapausing and diapausing colonies exposed to autoclaved soil, and the same diapausing colony exposed to a soil from a geographically separate location which had not been autoclaved. Insects were sampled to determine the possible core microbiome, additional microbial species that may be present, and the contribution of soil to the rootworm microbiome across all life stages. All life stages were obtained from each soil location, as well as corresponding soil samples. We analyzed the V4 hypervariable region of bacterial 16S rRNA genes with Illumina MiSeq to survey the different species present in the insect body and in the soils used for rearing.