Gut Bacterial Communities of and Their Associations with Host Development and Diet.

The gut microbiota of insects has a wide range of effects on host nutrition, physiology, and behavior. The structure of gut microbiota may also be shaped by their environment, causing them to adjust to their hosts; thus, the objective of this study was to examine variations in the morphological traits and gut microbiota of in response to natural and artificial diets using high-throughput sequencing. Regarding morphology, the head widths for larvae fed on a sterilized artificial diet were smaller than for larvae fed on a non-sterilized host-plant diet in the early instars. The gut microbiota diversity of fed on different diets varied significantly, but did not change during different development periods. This seemed to indicate that vertical inheritance occurred in mutualistic symbionts. and were dominant in/on eggs. In the first instar larvae, accounted for 33.52% of the sterilized artificial diet treatment, while (67.88%) was the predominant bacteria for the non-sterilized host-plant diet treatment. Gut microbe structures were adapted to both diets through vertical inheritance and self-regulation. This study clarified the impacts of microbial symbiosis on and might provide new possibilities for improving the control of these bacteria.