Preliminary Study of the Intestinal Microbial Diversity of Three Acridoidae: Oedipoda fuscocincta, Dociostaurus moroccanus, and Calliptamus barbarus (Acrididae: Orthoptera), in the Moroccan Middle Atlas

Abstract

Locusts are known for their herbivorous diet that constitutes a nuisance to agriculture worldwide, in Morocco these insects are considered a real threat and are widely distributed in the country. These insects are equipped with a digestive system that allows them to digest huge amounts of plant tissue. To understand the mechanisms allowing this voracity, the current study has focused on the diversity of gut microbiome using biochemical and molecular analysis tools, different bacterial isolates were identified and studied. The present study results showed the presence of four important bacterial families that are present in the intestine of these insects, namely Micrococcaceae, Dermabacteraceae, Bacillaceae, and Pseudomonadaceae. The results of Gram staining showed that 2 of 11 isolates were Gram-negative bacteria, however, only 9 bacterial strains were catalase positive. While, 3 strains (Pseudomonas stutzeri S12, Kocuria rhizophila, and Bacillus thuringiensis S4 and S8) had pectinase activity, while only one strain (Pseudomonas stutzeri S12) had cellulase activity.

Keywords: Acridoidae; Gut microbiome; Locusts; Middle Atlas; PCR.

Fig. 1

Geographical location of the studied area, in the middle atlas of Morocco

Fig. 2

The studied locusts: a Oedipoda fuscocincta, b Dociostaurus maroccanus, c Calliptamus barbarous

Fig. 3

Phylogenetic tree of bacteria isolated from the microbiome of the three studied insects. The maximum likelihood method was implemented using the two-parameter Kimura model with MEGA-X software. Phylogenetic trees were evaluated by bootstrap analysis based on 1000 replicates